83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Episode 336: Negotiating TV Deals

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

On this episode of 83WEEKS, Eric and Conrad take a deep dive into the ins and out of negotiating television deals. What's a companies many goal, what goes into a pitch, how is AEW doing on their goal to make a deal with WBD? Eric and Conrad cover it all including answering 83Weeks.com subscribers questions on the matter. All that plus Eric's thoughts on AEW's announcement regarding ALL IN in Texas next year and so much more. HENSON SHAVING - It’s time to say no to subscriptions and yes to a razor that’ll last you a lifetime. Visit https://hensonshaving.com/BISCHOFF to pick the razor for you and use code BISCHOFF and you’ll get two years' worth of blades free with your razor–just make sure to add them to your cart. BLUECHEW - Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code 83WEEKS at checkout--just pay $5 shipping. That’s https://bluechew.com/, promo code 83WEEKS to receive your first month FREE THE TRIPLE OPTION - Get into the game today – follow and subscribe to The Triple Option on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts! Watch The Triple Option on YouTube, new episodes drop Wednesday mornings!  BE KIND REWIND - If you love 80s and 90s nostalgia, Be Kind Let's Rewind is the podcast for you. New episodes air every Friday on all major podcasting platforms. Subscribe to their YouTube page @BeKindLetsRewind. SAVE WITH CONRAD - Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at https://www.savewithconrad.com ADVERTISE WITH ERIC - If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on 83 Weeks. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to https://www.podcastheat.com/advertise now and find out more about advertising with 83 Weeks. Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCqQc7Pa1u4plPXq-d1pHqQ/join BECOME A 83 WEEK MEMBER NOW: https://www.youtube.com/@83weeks/membership Get all of your 83 Weeks merchandise at https://boxofgimmicks.com/collections/83-weeks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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For imprint, for certain Hey, hey, it's Conrad Thompson, And you're listening to 83 weeks with Eric Pishoff, Eric, what's going on, man? How are you? I'm just awesome. Grateful to be alive. Couldn't be happier. Well, that's not true.

But I'm doing all right. No complaints. Man, I'm glad to hear it. We are in the middle of a pretty exciting time to be a wrestling fan. Of course, we've got WW SummerSlam in the rearview mirror. And now we're circling all in just a couple of days away. It's this Sunday, as folks are listening to this, we're, gosh, 48 hours away. I can't believe that's real.

I think it's an 11 o'clock start time here in Alabama. So don't forget, it's not a Sunday night pay-per-view because of the time difference between here and London. you're going to have something fun to do around lunchtime on Sunday. It's a really, really big show, Eric, and I know that there's been a lot of goalposts moving in the history of AEW. But my goodness, man, anytime you got 50,000 tickets out, it's a great sign for the wrestling business. What say you?

No, I agree. It's particularly in the UK. I mean, we talked about it. UK as an outlier, in my opinion, and it's a benefit to independent wrestling, WW, AEW. There's just a massive appetite of the product in the UK, and it's great to see everybody taking advantage of that,

particularly the independent scene. It's a lot of fun to think about, you know, how far AEW has come. Of course, they just had their big monster announcement that all-in next year is going to be a stadium show here in America. All in Texas is happening in Arlington, Texas, at Globe Life Field. We sort of hinted around this last week. We knew an announcement was coming. Now we know all

the details. Saturday, July the 12th in Arlington, where the Texas Rangers play baseball, Globe Life Field. This is a, I mean, if you're a fan of the big show and the extravaganza and the pomp and circumstance, it's not going to get much bigger than this next year for AW, I don't think. Are you surprised that they're leaving Wembley and that they're going to Texas? Yeah, I think it's insane. I think it's, in my opinion, and again, no inside information, just looking at all the various dots that come our way vis-a-e-W and their surrogates. I think this is as much about hype in the face of renegotiation or television rights or in some cases in new negotiations because after all the exclusive window is gone. We're not hearing

anything about AEW shopping their show. By the way, I have enough people on the ground in LA that I still have relationships with. And if that were the case, I'm not guaranteed I'd hear about it, but I'd have a pretty good chance as I'd hear about it pretty quickly. I've not heard about it yet. Again, something could be going on that I'm not familiar with. That's certainly could be the case, but kind of interesting that all of these big Australia and stadium shows, all this great news leading into, like I said, television renegotiations are hopefully a new home for AEW in contrast to actually what's going on. Attendance is in a toilet. It has been trending in that direction for quite some time.

ratings are in the toilet and have been trending that way for the last two and a half, three years. So there's no new good news in terms of reality. There's lots of good news in terms of perception. So we'll just see if perception does in fact become reality or if it's just a lot of Dixie Khan hype. Oh, my God. Eric, help me understand. Is it my perception that there's 50,000 tickets out for this Sunday? Or is that not right now?

We're not talking about that. We're not talking. We're talking about you just comfortably switch gears in the conversation. We're talking, you asked me about the stadium show in Texas. That's what I was reacting. We've talked about, it's an outlier. Congratulations to that. But why won't Texas be an outlier next year?

There's nothing in the United States that would indicate there's an ice cube chance in hell that AEW could fill a stadium or even half of a stadium. They're drawing 2,500 people to their live A show. Where's the connective tissue with reality that would make somebody think that here in the United States? Not in the UK. It's an outlier. It's not reflective of anything that EW is doing right.

or wrong, other than flying over there and taking advantage of the market. Here in the states, where Texas Stadium is, they can't draw flies if they roll their talent in horseshit. So where's the logic? And the only logic that I can find, and especially given the pattern of Tony Con who loves to hype, who loves to build up, big announcements, big surprise, change the face of professional wrestling as we know it. And it's just air.

So he has a pattern of over-hyping and under-delivering. And my opinion, based on the context of this conversation, was that perhaps these announcements are more to persuade or get interest from new suitors for their television program or give confidence to Warner Brothers Discovery. It's just a possibility because there's no reality. There are no facts on the ground that would suggest to even the most optimistic diehard Kool-Aid drinking AEW fan that they're going to be able to fill an arena. I just don't see it.

I mean, I get the excitement. Oh, we want it to happen so bad. We're going to will it by just saying it over and over and over again. We're going to change our destiny by just repeating what we want to have happen. without doing anything to affect it and to make it happen. Sorry. Eric, do you think that there, do you think there, I know you think that this is all theater for a television deal,

which I would say, well done. I mean, that's what you're supposed to do, is put on your best, you know, put your best. And I don't mean to interrupt you because it's rude and you know how I get when people do that to me. But I want to be clearly understand. I'm not sure that that's the case. It's the only thing I'm left with in the face of no lie.

logical information or suggestion as to why you would do that. The only logical thing is maybe it's just showcasing. Or you think there's a chance WWE's running SummerSlam there next year in Wembley? You know, because they've announced that SummerSlam 2026 is going to be in Minnesota. But I don't think they've announced yet where SummerSlam is going to be for 2025. I'm wondering, do you think that that maybe is the strategy

that AW could move up and they would happen before SummerSlam move out of the arena, bring it back more stateside I think there's a lot of maneuvering behind the scenes but I for one am excited about it because and I know you're saying

oh they can't draw and blah blah blah but they just did 50,000 seats this weekend and we're on at the same time saying oh, well, their ratings are in the toilet here. Like six or seven times more people watch the program here than they do over there. I think that you're going to have a lot of fly-in travel from all over the world. I know a lot. I know more than two dozen fans personally who are going to this show in the UK this weekend.

I'm not. I'm going to be watching here. But I know a lot of folks who are going. And I think that they'll have that sort of same fly-in from all over the world for Texas. I'm not going to say they're going to sell 50,000 tickets. But I think they'll sell 30,000 tickets next year in Arlington. Yeah, I don't want to make a prediction because I'm not in the business any longer. But I think it's going to be a disaster, my prediction, just based on what's currently happening.

Unless something changes, and it's funny, I just posted a long post on Quicks X, just a few moments before the show started, it kind of ties into this. something has to change because you know so much focus especially amongst the AEW fan base I'll let it go with that the ones that are most aggressive on social media

not all of them for sure but what I'm hearing and reading you know it's like oh AW has so many great storylines Steve Meltzer himself you know, wrote a while back. The problem with AEW is they have too many storylines. You just can't really focus on one.

And it's like what apparently AEW, Tony Conn and AEW, and the talent and a lot of the staff and clearly some of the most vocal social media, think that those, what they see in AEW is a story. It's a, you know, boy meets girl, boy, gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back. That's a story too.

It's just not compelling. It's not interesting. You can make that story interesting like, I don't know, Shakespeare did, and have a classic. But that story in and of itself is not really a story. It's a premise. It's a foundation for one. And you have to build on it. And you have to make it dramatic.

And you have to create conflict. You have to create hope. but you have to create jeopardy. And you have to create all these things that are in every single story, successful one, compelling one, people that have ever been told. WW is doing it. AEW is not. They're paying lip service to it. Well, something AEW is doing is putting on one heck of a show at Wembley Stadium this Sunday night.

And Eric Bischoff has agreed to sit down with me immediately after the pay-per-view. So when the confetti starts to fall one way or another, we want you to hurry to 83 weeks.com because we're going to be giving you a live reaction from Eric Bischoff and myself. Eric's agreed to watch this marathon show. I'm going to be watching it with a house full of folks and not going to imbib. I'm going to keep it between the ditches. And we're going to be your host to talk about what happened at the biggest AEW show of the year. All in London.

Might be the last All in London for a little bit since they're coming. and stateside next year. But we're going to break it down the good, the bad, and the ugly. We want you to join us. It's a live post reaction this Sunday immediately after the all-end show. Again, it's an early start time. The show's going to start at like 11 Central. I think, though, they have scheduled the post-game press conference on YouTube for 4 p.m.

Central, so I guess that's 5 Eastern. So somewhere around there is when you should expect to be at 83 weeks.com. locked and loaded with myself and Eric Bischoff. Go hit that subscribe button right now and do yourself a favor. Turn on the notifications bell. When you hit that notifications bell, you'll get a push notification on your phone, letting you know that Eric and I are live.

So you don't have to set your calendar. You don't have to try to remember it or punch something in your alarm. Just go ahead and hit the notifications bell at 83 weeks.com. So it's a one-two punch. Subscribe button and then the notifications bell. and you're going to be there with us. Eric, I can't believe this is real.

But before we clicked record today, you told me that you recently listened to AEW Unrestricted, which is the AEW podcast hosted by Friends of the Show, Will Washington and Aubrey Edwards. And they had a special guest in Jen Pepperman, who in a prior life worked on the writing staff with WWE. I think she was a part of Bruce Pritchard's team. and creative and then all of a sudden we found out she was leaving the company and before you

know it she or she is in AEW as I understand that you listen to that AEW podcast I'd love to get your thoughts on what you thought about Jen Pepperman's conversation yeah well um first off I had never listened to the AEW podcast it was suggested to me by a good friend trust suggested And I'd take a listen to it. And I did. I was very, very impressed. Again, I don't know what the rest of their shows sound like, but this was a really well-produced, very interesting.

And I give Aubrey credit for that. She asked really great questions. Oftentimes, it's not so much the guest. Now, the guest brings a potential for a good interview based on they may be and what their backgrounds are. But if you don't ask the right questions, don't dig a little bit. If you don't ask the questions that are not quite as obvious as, you know, anybody else would ask, those are really good questions. And I think Aubrey did a fine job.

She has a great voice for podcasting. I found her voice to be interesting. You know, I could feel her energy when there was energy in her voice. I could feel different, you know, vibes from her. She knows how to use her voice. And Will Washington, I thought, did a great job. Neither of those two stepped on each other. They really complimented each other more than they distracted from one another.

And that's not very common either. It's a lot of people that we all listen to. some of them are close friends and you get more than one of them on a show and it's like because everybody's stepping all over everybody else this was really really well done and I love Jen Pepperman more now than I thought I did she's just an amazing woman amazing woman and kind of tying into what I was talking about early on about TonyCon needing to make a change. Everybody's so focused on whether or not they get a renewal and how much the renewal is going to be like it fucking matters to any of them. It doesn't other than a.W.

will still be around. But nobody's talking about the quality, the product. And it's, again, I don't want to beat up. I'm trying to make a point without sounding like I'm taking swings of people. But you don't have to be a rocket scientist. And Tony's a data analyst, I guess, as part of his profession and his expertise. Why would you not look at your own data and go, okay, well, this is really not going the way it should go. It's time to make a change. Any other business would. You know, I don't know shit about football, but I would imagine if I was the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars and I had a quarterback that I was paying an incredible amount of money to and just couldn't complete a pass no matter how hard we tried.

We love the quarterback. He's a wonderful person. Everything's great. He's such a team player. Everybody in the market loves them until Sunday is he can't win a game. Would you do? You'd look at the data. You would look at the reasons why that quarterback isn't working and you would make adjustments.

Inc. Why doesn't Tony do the same with his wrestling brand, his wrestling product? It's not working. The creative approach just isn't working. If it was working, you wouldn't see the level. of deterioration that we're seeing in the audience and the fan base in general, including ticket sales, if it was working. It's clearly not working and hasn't been over two years.

One of the biggest angles of the year, their version of the NWO angle where Tony Kahn gets attacked and ends up in a brace and wears it on ESPN, on an NFL. draft broadcast, such a big deal out about it, it lost ground. It was a miserable failure because they didn't know how to tell a compelling story. They told the boy meets girl story. That has to change. And what I said in my post earlier today, this is turning into a freaking monologue, what I said in my post earlier today is that it's just a matter of time before Tony is going to

have to make a change. And I hope because he has the resources. Not only does he have an unlimited financial resource. I say unlimited. Who knows? Maybe there's a limit to it. It's unlimited. Okay. He's got

unlimited financial resources. That's a big part of it. But he's got the human resources right there under his nose. Jen Pepperman, after especially then I've you know I've put her over I and I yeah I didn't really work with her I didn't work with her for a couple months in general we didn't work specifically on any one

program or any one piece of talent we worked together with various talents and various stories but very superficially I think in depth but I did have a lot of very in-depth conversations with her about storytelling and structure and how she approaches it, given her episodic television background. And I wanted to get a feel for someone who had so much credibility outside of wrestling. When I first met her, I couldn't wait to see how she had adapted her experience to this very unique product, which is professional wrestling. And in listening to Jen yesterday during the interview,

she has a stronger grasp than I even thought she did after having spent, you know, when I want conversations with her. She's really, really good. And if I'm Tony Khan, seriously, and I'm not trying to stir shit. I'm not trying to do anything other than share an honest opinion. I'm Tony Khan, and I'm looking at the situation I'm currently in, I'm hoping and praying that my television partner doesn't sell the company off parts, which could happen, by the way, that's a real thing.

That company is in such duress financially and from a management perspective. And David Zasloff is probably sitting on, I'm ticking time bomb, to put it mildly, as the head of that network who woke up and found himself $9.1 billion in the red unexpectedly, not a good sign. But Tony's sitting there waiting and hoping and maybe has good reason to hope or some reason to hope

that if WBD figures out their NBA rights and doesn't sell their company off for parts or worse, maybe there's a chance that Tony will get his renewal and maybe it will be for an increase. I don't really care. What matters, though, is so what?

Because if he gets that renewal and it's the same product that continues to lose audience, it's just a matter of time. He's got Jen. If I was Tony, I would sit down with Jen Pepperman today before the sun goes down and say, Jen,

I want you to build the new AEW creative system. Not work on storylines, not come up with hot angles. Build me a system. Oversee the development of that system. Jen, you get to hire. We'll start off with two people that you feel you could really have fun, collaborate with, and come up with great stuff. And if I were Tony, I would give Jen pleat creative control over the entire process.

Tony needs to stay out. Tony needs to focus on the things that Tony's good at. Tony needs to focus on building out the business side of the wrestling business. Clearly, his family has got some success in that area. Focus on the things you do well, Tony. One in the other direction from things that you are not good at, that you don't have experience in, that you don't have an instinct for. It's okay.

it doesn't make you a bad person, doesn't make you any less than Vince McMahon or Paul Heyman or anybody else you want to compare yourself to by recognizing your strengths and leveraging those strengths in a way to be an asset for your goals and your business. More importantly, recognizing, I don't want to call it a weakness.

Just because you're not good at creative doesn't, it's... You can be good at a thousand other things that matter way more. It's not a weakness. It just is what it is. Acknowledge that. Acknowledge you strike. Put the right people in charge.

Jen Pepperman is so loyal. If you ever worry, Tony, about giving the keys to someone who might not have your best interest or someone who doesn't want to make you look good. Because Jen and people like her, once you bring them in, once you develop them, once you develop, that relationship, their job will be to make you look better, to make your decision for hiring them, that will make you look better. It will make the talent look better because now they're involved in stories that are compelling. And dare I say, at the end of all that feeling better and looking better, you'll probably be growing in your audience. And it's right there, Tony,

in the palm your hands. The evidence of your ability. You're your talent. You're not for creative. The evidence is there. You don't have that. But you've got so many other things. Why focus on the thing that you're not good at?

Because your ego, more than likely, I've got one. Sometimes it's really freaking healthy. Sometimes it's not. It's human nature. We're all the same. Perfect.

But don't let your ego get in the way, Tony. You've got the assets right now. I would give, Jen Pepperman is your solution right now. She is your solution. And you think, I'm going to take it a step further. If there's any concern on the part of WBD in AWBD's ability to grow an audience, what better way to make a big move and to give creative. creative, 100% control of that. Yeah, you have to hold her accountable. You have to hold her team

accountable. There has to be a plan in place. There has to be a way to measure success beyond your emotional reaction to what you see and whether you like it or don't like it from your perspective as a wrestling fan. That's not how you operate a business or produce a television show, by the way. So hold her accountable, but give it to her. She's right there. I'm babbling about this and I refuse to stop talking about it because I'm hoping that somehow some white Tony will hear about this interview or about this show and these comments and will at least consider that it might be a great idea. It's not any fun.

So, probably not going to happen. Huh? Well, I mean, I think Tony Kahn got into the wrestling business to be the booker, to have fun. I mean, I think he wanted to be a part of WWE creative once upon a time to be involved in creative. And if he couldn't get his door in, his foot in the door and WVE creative, why not just create your own?

And to remove yourself from that creative process, I think it's not, I guess what I'm saying is, it's not like Tony Kahn is doing any of this for the money. He doesn't, if Tony Kahn decided, hey, I don't want to work ever again. He doesn't have to, his kids, kids, kids, kids,

don't ever have to ever again. So this, is like what he wants to do. So you're asking him, hey, Tony, this would be a lot better if you just stop doing the thing that you want to do. Like, that's just not realistic. I don't think, I mean, I don't know, Tony. And maybe you don't know him well enough either to be able to have any insight into this question. But do, do you not think that as much as Tony wants to be a Booker and be perceived to be Paul Heyman or Vince McMahon or even Eric Pischoff in the 90s? Do you think he would rather be subjected to? to the kind of negative shit that he subjects himself to, not just for me and Cornynett, but from his own audience. Do you not think that he would find as much joy in having a successful wrestling company

as opposed to an unsuccessful one that he gets to play Booker in? I think it all comes down to how you define success. You and I define it with a P&L. He doesn't define success that way. So I think he's having fun. And I think, you know, I've got some friends who, like to gamble. I, for one,

and not a huge gambler. I mean, I like to get a little action on the games every now and again just for funsies. But I've got friends who, like, man, they go play slot machines. They go play poker tournaments. They go play blackjack. And they do it as like a hobby. And so, you know, whether they're spending $1,000 a month or $10,000

a month on their hobby, it's no different than another friend of mine who, man, he's on the water every chance he gets doing bass fishing. And so I've got friends who have sort of expensive hobbies. And I think on level, what we all forget when podcasts like this are being created and we're taking a look at the tangibles of business and maybe the intangibles.

Hey, he's happy. You may not be happy and other people in the organization may not be happy. But I think Tony Kahn, as we're talking right now in August of 2024, he's over the moon. He's thrilled. I mean, it wasn't that long ago. This was all an idea. And however we got here, there's feelings. 50,000 people who were coming to see his idea this weekend.

I don't think he would define it as anything other than a huge success because he had an idea. He's realized that idea. He's having fun. Well, all right, then. And I guess part of that fun is trying to convince everybody he actually is competitive and is a challenger brand and all the other business aspects that he rags about so often. Clearly doesn't care if people can see through that like a glass of water.

But whatever. as long as he's having fun. The only thing that, you know, I and I guess it doesn't matter because people generally, however many people listen to this podcast and they'll take clips of it and get a little press in the wrestling trades.

But nobody's going to remember this podcast six weeks from now, six days from now, right? So these comments are going to come and go. But if the perception becomes that Tony Khan really doesn't care As long as he's having fun, he doesn't care if the product sucks because it does, for the most part. There's some moments. But if you look at this show and you take your blinders off and just look at it objectively,

it's just got so far to go. But, hey, if he's having fun, I guess that doesn't matter except for the people that do matter. That's the audience. When they're watching television, they realize that Tony. He can doesn't really care if the product sucks as long as he's having fun. That's not a good way to hold on to another. I think we're going to have to agree to disagree. I don't know that we could be further apart on any of this,

but something I know that you and I always agree on is how great a shave you get when you pick up a Henson razor. You know, if you were born after 1970, there's a very good chance your first razor was a multi-brain. razor. I mean, these razors have been the status quo for over a half century. But what has that gotten us to? According to a recent study, two-thirds of men expect some irritation when they shave, and there's virtually no information on how to prevent irritation, only on how to go about treating it. It turns out over two billion plastic razors enter the landfill each year in the

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Sir in the orange, your phone away, please? Um, my kidda smart smoke alarm sent an alert through the ring app. Okay, sure. No, there's smoke in my house. Yeah, right. A smoke alarm texting you. That's a new one. See, the train monitoring agent is calling now. Hello?

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We got more than we can say grace over, as we like to say here in the South. and, boy, I really don't want to do this, but it would be disingenuous if I didn't bring it up. I am a longtime subscriber, the wrestling observer. I consider Dave Meltzer a friend. I value his opinion. I take it for what it is. It's an opinion.

But, boy, there were a couple of missteps over the last week with Mr. Dave Meltzer. Unfortunately, he posted that Afa, the Wild Samoan, had passed away when he, had in fact not yet passed away and Bruce Pritchard took him to the absolute woodshed on social media about this and you actually retweeted a post where people were pretty negative about Dave and it continued he uh Mr. Meltzer posted a comment where he was talking about an internal memo that he saw from Warner Brothers Discovery on the total value of AEW programming. And then it was $288,265,720 per year based on ad revenue, blah, blah, blah. And it went down this rabbit hole.

And then it comes out that, well, that wasn't actually an internal memo from Warner Brothers Discovery. It was posted by a fan to a Discord and then shared around. and I guess he took the bait and the result is he was wrong twice in a week on some pretty big stuff I hated for Dave because boy he's got a lot of

accurate stuff that he's reported but boy when these really glaring ones tough week to be writing the observer easy week to be Eric Bischoff the floor is yours Mr. Bischoff no it's not look you you are seeing it now

See, you've, and I respect the fact, actually, I admire the fact that you're willing to admit that you're a friend of Dave's and you don't let this kind of thing affect your perception of him and you look for the better qualities. I actually think that makes you a good human being. And I like that. I like, we surround white people like you to make up for people like me. Part of the reason I'm different than you is because. I've actually spent 30 years of my life in the wrestling industry. And that's not a knock, brother. I know it sounds like one, but it's not.

In that period of time, I saw the negative impact that Dave Meltzer and his lies, distortions, omissions, and fiction, I've seen firsthand how that negatively affects the industry, just like Vince McMahon did. And it may be easy for people who have never really been in the industry who don't understand or haven't seen firsthand some of the shit that's caused by Dave Meltzer and some people and some people like him, but him, he's at the top of the list. Since you don't know that, you haven't had to experience it. You haven't had to deal with it.

It's easy to discount that and just say, oh, that's just Dave being Dave, and sometimes he gets it right and sometimes he gets it wrong. But that's not true either. Dave has never done research. Dave has never applied anything remotely close to journalistic integrity to anything he writes. He doesn't fact check. He doesn't confirm anything.

He doesn't double source anything. Excuse me. I want to make sure nobody misses a bit. Dave is a fraud. Dave hears things from variety of sources. Some of it fits his narrative, the way he wants to choose, the way he chooses to look at the world. and the way he projects his thoughts about what's right and wrong about the industry,

David will scour Reddit, he'll look at chat boards, he'll read a variety, issue of variety or surf online, looking for little tidbits of information that support his agenda, and then he'll put it out there as fact, without sourcing any of it, without researching any of it, without confirming any of it. and he gets caught. It's always been that way.

It has always been that way. He has been lying, distorting, misleading, and otherwise fraudulently convincing people that he's actually a good source or information about the wrestling business. He's conned so many people for so long. And all it takes is some idiot, I shouldn't say that.

All it takes is some person who is writing a person who is writing in the mainstream media who's writing about professional wrestling but doesn't really want to do any of the research and take the time to figure anything out. So they just look for somebody who covers wrestling and Dave Meltzer's name will pop up. Why? Because he's one of the first ones to do it. He was the first one to put out a dirt sheet, one of them. And to his credit, he's positioned himself as a credible third party resource on the business of professional wrestling. And he's con people into believing that. And it's not true because he doesn't do any research.

Look at, well, I could go off on a tangent. That's my issue. You're seeing it now. We're all seeing it now because there's this thing called social media and anybody and everybody can kind to point to all the bullshit that Dave Meltzer feeds everybody on a daily basis and call them out on it. If it wasn't for social media, if it wasn't for the internet, you'd all be thinking he's a great source of information. He's a fraud. He's charging people money because those people believe that he's a great source of firsthand knowledge and he's got direct relationships in the business.

He has a couple of relationships in business. Not many and nothing credible. He gets so much shit wrong, but he tries every day to convince people he's got great relationships inside of WWE. He does not. He talks to fringe management, people who are kind of outside of the loop, technically management, but low-level. People like him that live on the dirt, just like Jim Barnett did, Gary Jester did, Terry Taylor did. My buddy Zane Bresloff did, and I knew it.

It was part of his charm. I could tell when he was regurgitating Dave Meltzer bullshit. And I just smiled and went about my business. But for those of us who have lived through Dave Meltzer's bullshit, every time this happens to him and it's happening more and more consistently now, I get a smile on my face. Every time somebody calls him out and exposes him for the fraud that he really is, I just get a smile on my face.

And I think, damn, it's about time. I'm sure Bruce does too. It feels the same way. Well, let's move along. Of course, the topic today is talking about negotiating television deals and ask Eric anything. Tony Kahn's been teasing a TV deal. We've been talking about it for a few weeks here. There's a big announcement coming.

I guess the question I have is, do you think there's a chance we see that announcement this week, given that it's all in week and you're going to have more attention on AEW perhaps this week and next week? then you will for the foreseeable future. Do you think this would be the week to make such an announcement? I think it would be great if it can happen for all the reasons you just said. There's going to be a lot of eyeballs. There's 50,000 people in a building. It's just going to add to the excitement.

It's a bonus, right? It's a cherry on top, an important one. But yeah, if a deal is done and it can be announced, this would be an ideal time to do. I mean, respectfully, when they've been running, you know, shows at the East Sports Arena and you could have that announcement come out and there's a visual of 1,300 fans there or the announcement happens and there's a visual of 50,000 fans,

it's kind of a no-brainer. I think that there's a real good chance that we'll see it. But I do want to ask about, you know, the way wrestling and television used to be. because I know that this is something that you've spent a lot of time on and I think you actually originally helped get your start trying to sell syndicated TV for the AWA. The model has clearly changed.

I mean, television rights are now the new big thing, the new big line item above merch, above ticket sales. And that used to be what it was all about. We're going to use our television to sell tickets. Now it's a whole new line item. I mean, once I'm completely inverted, isn't it? If you go back to the 60s and 70s, you gave, you shot your television, you produced your television, you flew talent in, you pay the talent to wrestle, you produced that show, and then you gave it. You didn't barter.

There was no, you keep six minutes, I'll keep six minutes, you were able to retain some commercial inventory so you could promote your live events. But your television show was a lost leader. It was a cost of doing business. the real business is in a live ticket sales. Now it's completely inverted itself. And somewhere along the way, kind of in the middle, and I think a lot of this happened when the super station became a thing. Wrestling promotions didn't just give the tape freely.

They had to pay to air it. So you would hear, like, you know, Bill wants when he closed up shop, he had hundreds of thousands of dollars, allegedly, in unpaid television bills. and even Paul Heyman, you know, at times would lose coverage in New York or Philadelphia because he was paying on a weekly basis. Now, a lot of that is back because, well, Vince McMahon said, hey, what do they really have if they have a territory? They have television in that area. Well, if I approach the television station and say, hey, I know they've been giving you the show, but I'll give you $2,000 a week to air this one instead.

Or a suitcase full of cash that no one needs to know about. he drank your milkshake right up how many you know how many times I've heard stories first-hand second-hand stories from people who are involved in that let's hear about it tell us some I'm not going to name names but what does it matter now no it doesn't matter now okay okay yeah there are people because I have friendships and relationships they may not be in the business but they're still alive um where you'd walk into an office with a suitcase full of 5, 10, 15 grand and just forget

to bring your briefcase with you. A program director or general manager would grab that briefcase to take it home and you'd get your show on here. Hello. There's a lot of that going on. A lot of it. It was more common than not.

In big markets. You're not going to get away with that in Des Moines, right? Or Cincinnati even. New York, L.A., Chicago, Detroit, Miami, Atlanta, maybe not Atlanta. Yeah, it happened, especially when it was time to go national, especially when WWE was really beginning to assert itself and eat up the territories. There was a lot of that.

It doesn't happen anymore. Now it's the television network's paying for the rights. It's just what a, it's kind of cool. I'm really grateful to be alive and having had experience the territory system as a fan. And it really is a very young man in my 20s, getting involved in the wrestling business and seeing it kind of transition from the territory system into the national cable, being a part of that whole process and just being a fly on the wall. I had a lot to do with it, but just seeing it firsthand.

and seeing how the industry has evolved so much. It's a fascinating study of an entertainment property. It's really a fascinating study. It's interesting to think about how much it's changed, too, just in the more modern era. I mean, I know I'm about to cite something that was almost 25 years ago, but I think most of us listening to this,

remember I think it was 2000, when you saw the USA Network lose, Monday Night Raw, and all of a sudden it was on TN, I think what is lost on a lot of people is during the Monday Night War era, where ratings have never been higher and more people have, I mean, there's never been a time where that many people watched pro wrestling ever before, just setting records week in, week out. W.W.E was getting $100,000 a week from USA. It's like $5.2 million a year. And that was for the biggest audience possible. It's just hard to imagine how much and in the scheme of things, how quickly it's all changed, Derek.

I think the Monday Night War era, the explosion into mainstream, and pop culture that resulted with first nitro going head to head with with Monday Night Raw and then the battle obviously with the launch of the NWO and WCW dominating for as long as we did 83 straight weeks is what the rumor is and 104 total but that era WWE going public based on the success the rapid growth the explosion the term and around of the business. If you look at WWE's business, 1993, 1994, 1995, it was not pretty. It was ugly. It was still suffering from the steroid trials and all the bad publicity

that went along with it, even though they would have some decent ratings. They obviously had a good TV deal, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the business of the wrestling business was still suffering, advertising was still suffering, which is, I'm guessing, I wasn't a part of the conversations, but I'm guessing why USA decided, nah, we're done for now, and it went over to TNM. A lot of that, I'm guessing, had to do with the fact that ad sales did not support the cost of the show. Common kind of situation that we still hear about today. So, like I said, just fascinating. It is fascinating. And it's weird to think, quickly it can get away from you. And if you've ever signed up for a streaming service,

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evolved with regard to wrestling. And we haven't spent a ton of time talking about this, but when you first get going with Vern and you're trying to sell syndication, can you just explain what that means and what your job was and specifically what it entailed? What were you doing at the time? It's really quite simple. It's a sales job. Instead of selling a vacuum cleaner or an encyclopedia set to a homeowner, I was taking a videotape. in a little bit of a history of professional wrestling in any specific market.

Let's say, for example, I'm going to Des Moines because Vern didn't have TV in Des Moines hadn't had it for quite some time. So I would take a sizzle reel, basically a VHS highlight reel of what the AWA is, a little bit about its history. And I would go back and learn some of the history of the AWA in that particular market. And sometimes she had to go back to the 70. in order to do that, even. And you sit, you make an appointment.

You know, if you do your research, you got your package together. You kind of understand the market. You know what other television stations, other channels in the market. You know what their program lineup is. You know, if I'm going to see a general manager of, say, Channel 4 and NBC station and point, I'm going to make sure I understand what their schedule looks like. There's no way of me knowing what's working and not working at that point. and especially because there was no ratings available to the consumer, passive viewer.

You had to be in the business and subscribe to the old senator to get that data and burn didn't have that. So you just do your best. You do your research. And then you'd call call the program director. Start there. Sometimes your general manager and program directors are one and the same. Great. Even better.

Now that guy can actually make a decision. You're not pitching somebody that has to go pitch. somebody else. I hate that when that happened. So, you know, anybody that's in sales knows. You want to pitch the decision maker. You're not somebody that's close to the decision maker. Anyway, you go in and you sit down and just like in any sales job, you get to know your customer just a little bit, find out what you have in common outside of what you're there to talk about, if that's possible. Sometimes time restraints don't make it so. But oftentimes, especially in smaller markets, you've got all day, man. You need to know the person, get them to talk a little bit about their

memories of professional wrestling, try to get a feel for how they feel about it so you know if you're up against a brick wall and all you're going to be able to take a brick out of the wall with is backs and numbers. Or if you've got somebody that's got some kind of an emotional connection to professional wrestling, because I remember watching it as a kid or their kids love it, their grandkids love, whatever. Kind of find some of those common connections if you can and then you go into the pitch and you tell just like you would anything at any other sales you explain the features

and the benefits of having professional wrestling that wasn't hard to do even in the AWA because their local markets AWA still did really well it was the hometown team it was an older demo we always still did pretty well particularly in the Minneapolis market

and Mason City Des Moines, Denver for a good while, North South Dakota, that was our territory. We did well on those territories. So it wasn't hard to pitch cold hard numbers to someone who has no emotional connection, but if you're fortunate enough to get in there, and usually you did,

because this was back before, you know, right now the television industry is nothing but a turnstile. Executives are going through their so fast. The average life expecting, of a Hollywood exec is probably under six months. It's just the turnover is so high because the business is becoming so much more difficult

because profit margins are crashing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I don't want to go into that. That's current. We're talking about 1987 Eric Bischoff knocking on the door of Channel 4 in Des Moines. You sit down if you find that person that's got an emotional connection. Now is when you really bring them in. because Byrne's model was, you keep six, I'll keep six minutes of advertising. Assuming there was 12 minutes of, I think there was at that time, 12 minutes in an hour,

the station would keep six, Vern would keep six. And Vern would use his six minutes of advertising to promote whatever sponsor, to sell to whatever advertisers Byrne had at that time. I'll go into that in a minute. The rest of it he would use to the best of his ability to promote whatever was happening in that market. So that when they toured that market, Furn could go in there and get a 30, 40, 50,000 dollar payday. And he'd do that once a month. And so our Vern was a monthly territory, not a weekly territory, which is one of the reasons why it made it so appealing talent to work in AWA.

Because he paid pretty well, but the schedule was so much better. It was a monthly territory. So you went on the road every day. And that was it. I would go in. I'd pitch the show. I'd pitch the numbers. And then I would,

this is where it got meaningful or not, is I would pitch the station's participation in our monthly live events. Now we're going to buy commercial time for the live event. Not a lot is our show for that. But as a gesture of goodwill, we would buy some additional outside. wrestling commercial inventory we'd give a ton of signage at the event we would promote the local channel which is important to local television you know mason city iowa smaller markets even

demoyne mankato minnesota a lot of the a lot of the country your local television station is kind of a big deal your local weather people are celebrities local newscasters show up and open up car dealerships it's an important part of the community so So we would create opportunities for the television station to be a part of that live event. And you pitch it. I had a great deal of success. When I got to AWA, I think we were on 26 markets. Within about a month and a half, we were up to 75 or 80.

And it wasn't because I was exceptionally good. It's because I was the first person that they had hired that was dedicated to just do that. and not as a part of my other responsibility. I want to talk about when you first joined WCW and you're sort of getting the lay of the land. I know you're working your way up from C-Squot announcer, I think, is the way you've described yourself, that when does it click for you or does it click for you at the time

that, hey, we're here because we're cheap programming for Turner. affordable programming you know I didn't really think about it until probably about 92 or three as especially under Watts because that was that was a really high pressure

situation there was a lot of pressure on WC down on me necessarily in and out C squad talent nobody gave a shit about so my life was cool but there was so much pressure on WCW because of the losses that had been incurred in the previous years because of some of the stuff that Watts was doing

the controversy that it was creating all of that was the catalyst for a lot of conversations about my god is Ted Turner going to pull the plug on this company because we've lost all this money because we've never made a profit because we lost $10 million last year, because this, because of that,

because of the bad headlines. So all of those things started becoming a part of the daily conversation inside of WCW, not only at the management level, but all the way down to talent. And the one thing that came out of that is we all kind of understood that, yeah, but what are they going to replace this with?

Granted, Turner had a vast library. But fortunately for WCW, WCW still brought eyeballs to the network, and it was cheap. That's when I started learning more about the cost of programming. I mean, that was the beginning. I certainly learned a lot more when I got out of wrestling and started producing television on my own. But anyway, yeah, that's when I began to learn about cost effectiveness, the efficiency of professional wrestling in terms of cost compared to sitcoms or, you know, purchasing, licensing programming.

Turner didn't have to license WCW. We didn't get $100,000 a week, $5 million a year. We got no percentage of the advertising. And it's funny some people have reported on WCW, $250 million. That's what the company got to report. That doesn't include the portion of the money that we generated that all the other divisions of Turner, who happened to, you know, maybe walk by our office once a month, took off the top. It didn't include the revenue that was generated by ad sales. We're spending over $350 million a year in 97, 98, and gross profits were probably in excess of $50 to $60 million.

that time it got to us if everybody else put their hand in a bucket it was less than that at one point if you look at the cost of WCW Nitro programming as expensive as it was as much as talent as we had

it was still super because the physical production of the show just you know there's no editing one of the biggest costs in a show is post production physical production of a show.

The on-site production of a show is, yeah, it's expensive. But the real money comes in post and have that compared to a sitcom or have unions compared to a sitcom or drama. We weren't paying, you know, talent was paid a lot of money, you know, debate that. But not anywhere is close to talent in sitcoms and dramas. So it's always been a cost effect. Let's talk a little bit about, you know, when once upon a time, we've touched on this in the past. There's an NBA strike happening.

And you negotiate with NBC about having WCW programming on the air. Can you tell us what your experience was like in those negotiations? It wasn't really a negotiation. I just answered the phone. A friend of mine, Gary Constine, who was an executive producer at NBC. the strike just called me from out of the blue

we had had a pretty good relationship we had developed a pretty good relationship beyond just doing things together and wrestling

every once in a while became personal friends and he called me and said hey we got a hole want to fill it we got this NBA thing and we got a hole

on our schedule and we're looking for something good what do you think I didn't even know what I was going to do at that point, the point of the phone call. But without thinking about it, I said, absolutely, let me go get this approved because it was

off network outside of the Turner family. So I couldn't just do it. Although now when I look back and I should have done, I did a lot of shit that I should have done that I just went ahead and did. And everybody was happy I did it. This probably would have been a good one. But anyway, I went right from my office. I hung up the phone with Gary Considine.

I had Gina Engel call Harvey Schiller and see if I could get up to see him right away. She did, he did, I did, went into his office, and Harvey said, let me check, meaning he had to run it up the flight pole to his buses, one of which was a guy, I believe it was Joe Yuva. Joe Yuva has since gone on to become one of the most powerful people in television, particularly advertising, but television in general. Joe Yuva, I think at the time, was head of ad sales. And he said, nope.

It didn't work. We're not going to have Turner broadcasting content on competitive networks. Nope. Shot it down. That was it. So it wasn't a good. We could have walked in there. Probably would have pulled a million and a half out, a million at the time.

Because our cost of production of Nitro, if we just look at a single show. At that time, you know, Neil Pruitt maybe will have a better handle on this or David Crockett, but I'm pretty sure we were knocking $250,000, $300,000 an episode, didn't include talent. That's just physical production. That's, you know, what that would be in today's dollars. I don't know. Do the math. So it was pretty expensive to produce.

But for NBC, I would have obviously marked up our production because that's what you do. That's how television production companies actually work is they take their cost of producing something. And they throw their margin on top of that. And that's the selling price, just like anything else. And we would have probably double. And I would have had to apply the talent costs, particularly in this case, because it wasn't in our company relationship. So the cost of that to NBC would have probably exceeded a million dollars from money. We knew that.

Gary knew that. It wasn't coming cheap. But it was live action. Nitro was hot as hell. We were pop culture friendly. And we would have been prime time on NBC with a special. We're going to have Dennis Rodman and, what was his girlfriend's name at the time, her wife? Carmen Electra.

I'm going to lecture. They were going to get divorced on Valentine's Day. We're going to have like an anti-valentine's day. Instead of a wrestling wedding, we were going to have a wrestling divorce and make it official. Oh, shit, because everybody else does wrestling weddings. I want to do what everybody else does. Different than, by God. There you go.

And Carmen at the time was all about it. I didn't talk directly to Carmen, but Dennis did. And everybody was excited about it. I in fact I called Gary I said before I went down and talked to no it wasn't before it was after I talked to Harvey and I was waiting for Harvey to get back to me because it didn't happen overnight it was just like two three days I had to wait right so the wheels are turning to my head so that's why I'm reaching out to Dennis and hey Dems I got an idea here's why cool call you back got Carmen on board guy called Gary said this is what we're going

do. He loved it. He loved it. I have a big ceremony in the whole nine yards and just have to get divorced. Well, let's talk about a divorce that was an ab. You buy a pair of socks, that's two socks. You buy a pair of Bomba socks. That's four socks. Because one purchased is one donated. Sox are the number one most requested clothing item in homeless shelters. So when you buy a pair of super comfortable Bomba socks, you're also donating a pair. Bombas customers have powered over 150 million donations. So Bombas would like to thank you 150 million. million times, but we only have like 30 seconds. Go to bombus.com and use code audio for 20% off your first purchase.

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days, but that's really all it is, to try to see, is there another opportunity out there? What was your experience like in that sort of lame duck period where you knew that, hey, WCW can be yours, but not with Turner Television? Oh, we didn't. We were out. The minute that phone call ended, and then Brian called me, Brian Badal, that was it. We were out. We were done. There was no trying to salvage it.

There was no trying to sell it anywhere else. I had had meetings during the period of time that we were doing our due diligence. And that was a long period of time. I can't remember. You know, Brian Bedal could obviously, because I wasn't involved in. It's not like my memory's that bad. I just wasn't involved in the due diligence. Right.

I'm trying to remember, but I'm going to say it was probably kind of three months. It wasn't less than that, probably more than that, but we'll call it three months. So during that three-month window where we're doing diligence, we sign the letter of intent, everything's moving in the right direction. And due diligence is really finance people going through the numbers that were being presented and offered legal going through the contracts, pre-existing contracts, any conflicts that exist. We're certainly looking at talent contracts. It was just a lot of that.

boring shit it takes time and so during that time I was and again directed by Brian Bedell I wasn't just out there freelancing we wanted to know what our options were in case we wanted to create another program

in case we wanted to move a program from Turner to somewhere else and I had a meeting with a guy by the name of Peter Legore was the head of FX at the time working for Fox and his second, his number two, which was a guy by the name with Kevin Riley,

who went on to become the executive Turner that greenlit dynamite five years ago, same guy. So I had a meeting with Peter and Kevin, I think Riley's his last name, but it was the same guy. It had a meeting with several meetings with them, actually, And there was some strong interest, but no commitment. And actually at one point in time, this just occurred to me to put me in an awkward position.

At one point in time, either after my first or second meeting with Peter Legerre at Fox, FX, I had a conversation with Brad Siegel. And Brad was really excited about the opportunity. Because he wanted to leverage the opportunity I was trying to create with FX of Fox. Brad wanted to leverage that to get first crack at reruns of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I wasn't familiar with the show. I think it was Sabrina. I think of Sabrina the Teenage Witch or something like it, but it was a really hot show.

right and Brad wanted it for first run syndication first run of syndication means you go from network to the first time it gets replayed right as you as you know you first run syndication second run gets a lot cheaper third run anybody can do it fourth run people forgot they even have it so Brad wanted a shout-up first run syndication for teenage Sabrina. So it was, he wanted to try to figure out a way to leverage that. That's as far as that got for some reason. I think we were probably waiting until after the deal was done

because you couldn't really negotiate piece of property that you didn't really own. You could have preliminary conversations. You can have what-if conversations, which is probably what most of those conversations were with Peter Legerre and Kevin. But yeah, that's what I remember. We should talk a little bit about your experience in your second act. And we don't talk a lot about that here on the show. I'm talking about your creation of non-wrestling television shows with your production company.

But before we do that, this is a nostalgia pod. So here's a quick question for you. Are you a fan of the 80s and 90s? Do you long for the good old days? You're still too sweet, every stranger, wearing an NWO. shirt. Then check out a new nostalgia podcast called Be Kind Let's Rewind. Join three lifelong friends as they discuss television, movies, music, and pop culture from the 80s, 90s, and beyond. They've covered topics ranging from personalities that we know and love, like the macho man Randy Savage

or Hulk Hogan, to movies like Predator and Happy Gilmore. They also have live interviews with authors like John Finkel and our buddy, Dr. Brad, who we've spent a lot of time with here on the program, and even the Batman executive producer Michael Euslin. Be sure to check out John and Brad's books, Macho Man, The Untamed, The Unbelievable Life of Randy Savage, and Brad's book, The Six-Pack on the Open Road and Search of WrestleMania. Join Be Kind, Less Rewind for weekly segments such as Booze of the Week, shit stuck in my head this week, and the infamous Pizza Gorilla, and of course the Norm McDonald clip of the

week. New episodes air every Friday on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and all your major podcasting platforms. So be sure to subscribe to their YouTube page at Be Kind, Let's Rewind, and you can engage with the show on Instagram, X, and Discord. If you love 80s and 90s nostalgia, this is the show for you. Check it out. Be Kind. Let's rewind. By the way, while we're rewinding, what if we rewind to a time when they were better interest rates? It turns out they're coming back, boys and girls. If you haven't already, go get yourself a quick quote at save with conrad.com. It's no cost, no obligation, and if we can't help you save some money, we won't waste your time. We're routinely helping our podcast listeners take advantage of an opportunity

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You're done until November 1st. And come November, you're going to have a better mortgage. I want you to really think about this. What does the end of your loan look like? How old are you going to be when you pay it off? Isn't it weird that we don't talk about things like that? We hear people all the time say, oh, I got two car payments left. How many house payments you got left?

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You can even email me directly. Conrad at savewithconrad. I just heard from a WWE champion this week looking to save a little money. We hooked him up. I'm going to hook you up too. Save with Conrad.com. Eric, let's talk about Bischoff Hervey Entertainment. You know, we've spent, gosh, years now talking about your experience in the wrestling

business, but very little time talking about outside wrestling television projects. And you find yourself in an ever-changing landscape, and I'm sure, working. working in the confines of Turner on the inside looking out. Now you find yourself on the outside looking in. What was that whole process like when you would negotiate to get your new ideas, your new programs on television? Take us through that negotiation process. That's, well, the negotiation was like the last step.

You know, the first step, obviously, is coming up with an idea. And literally one of the things that Jason and I were probably, best at for a period of time probably some of the best at was just said first of all knowing what the market was looking for being aware of what was working for other networks the type the genre you know we did unscript primarily unscripted we did i think one unscripted series but primarily unscripted right reality so you'd look around it and see what was working what networks were and you would learn

it's one of the great things about having a really good agent because your agent you have a good television agent he not only represents you he represents or she represents maybe 10 or 15 other people just like us

who are creating and developing and pitching shows but during the pitch process you learn what the customer is looking for so a good agent is constantly taking notes because they're in 15 or 20 pitch meetings a week. And because they're in those meetings, they're hearing firsthand what the networks are looking

for so that when Jason and I would have our meetings with our agents, it would be almost like a temperature check. Our agent for a large portion of the time was a guy by the name of Hans Schiff. And we would sit, Hans was a senior guy. I loved working with Hans. We'd sit down with Hans maybe once a week. go out for coffee or drink after work, whatever. And say, okay, Hans, what's the market looking for?

Can you get a general idea? And that's our starting point. Okay, the market is looking for this type of program. And that's one of the things, by the way, to this day. I just had a conversation, I'm going to be vague here. And I'm saying, because I'm dangling to cure it, but I promised to keep it quiet until we had done flushing it out. But I got a call from a friend of mine who is a former writer in WWE,

who is also a very successful television producer outside of wrestling. And he's got an idea. And he wanted to get my opinion on his idea. And his idea is based on another program that is so hot right now. It's on Amazon. I can give you the name of it. But it's an Amazon property. There's only been one episode so far.

But now everybody in Hollywood wants that. We want our version of that. You know how many times I've heard that conversation or that directive sitting down with a network executive? We want our version of that successful show. We want you to steal somebody else's shit. Dress it up a little bit different, put some different people in it, add an element or two that's unique, and then boom, off we go. That's how Hollywood works. it is so risk averse.

Especially now because the margins are shitty. And like I told you, it's one of the reasons why the network executive turnstile is it's like a cattle shoot now more than anything else. And because of that everybody is so afraid to try anything new that typically what they want you to do in Hollywood is go develop something that's just like that, just like my friend who called me this past week and said, go watch the show and let's come up with something just like that.

So nothing changes. But we would, again, we'd sit down with Hansen and Jason and I spent a lot of time together. You know, Jason moved from L.A. to Cave Creek, Arizona, where I had a home. He lived half a mile away from me. So even when we weren't in our office, we had an office in L.A. And our staff was in L.A., but either one of us lived there, we'd be there for three, four, five days at a time sometimes. But oftentimes we weren't.

And we were home. We would go out to eat. go out for a beer. We'd go out riding Harleys, stop somewhere, and we would just riff ideas. And it all started with, what if? It's every one of them. It started with what if? And sometimes those ideas were ridiculous. Sometimes it were pretty good ideas. And if it was a good idea, then we'd start developing it. By developing it, I mean you start figuring out the format. What is the show? Define the show. Where are the beats, elements, plot points, call them whatever the fuck you want.

Where are the markers within that format that we know that we're going to be able to solicit the right types of emotions? Sometimes you want to build anticipation. Sometimes you want to create anger. Sometimes you want to create resentment. Sometimes you want to create jealousy. Sometimes you just want to create joy and laughter. So what are those elements, those emotional elements, how do they play into this format?

And most importantly, what's the payoff? Because that's the question that everybody asks when you go into pitch a show. Great, I get the idea. What's the payoff? What's your finish? Basically. So we would develop those ideas on paper. Now, it's a little bit different now than it used to be.

And by the way, Conrad, stop me any time because I can just go straight through for an hour on this shit. But once you had a basic idea on paper, then we would more often than not, we'd go through it with our agent and get a second set of eyes and a second opinion, third opinion on it, see if there was any input he would have.

And then back in this period of time, we're talking about up until about 2000, I got out of the business in 2017 is when I got out of television. Up until about 2000, and 12, you could pitch shit on paper. You could do paper pitches. You could show someone the beats, show them the plot point,

show them the format, show them the payoff, talk about the talent, talk about the type of people you're going to bring into the show. You could do all that without spending a dime in terms of production. Now, you've got to go out and shoot a casting tape. You've got to shoot a sizzle reel. And oh, by the way, it's got to be pretty high, If you want to get a network's attention, the cost of presenting a pitch right now to do it well, it's probably about $25,000.

That's just to get in the door and get a meeting. Because if you don't have that, nobody's going to take you seriously. It's pretty crazy. Crazy. But we would develop it. We'd pitch it. Now, sometimes we would pitch an idea. Take a, oh, God, I can never remember the names of it.

shows, but take the show we sold to Discovery, motorcycle gang, club, sorry, club, devil's ride, name of the show. That one we had to spend quite a bit of money shooting the cast because the cast was so critical to that. The cast is always critical, but I think the network wanted to actually make sure we could deliver what we said we were going to deliver, which were, by the way, legitimate club members, not in their colors, because that doesn't work for advertising, but a lot of our cast were current, couple former, more current club members in very high profile clubs.

And the network, in fact, at the time, it might have been Zazlov, wanted, not that we pitched David personally, I don't think, but whoever the exec was, we were pitching, wanted to make sure we could actually deliver. And we did. And that cost us some money. But in that case, at least at that time, when the network executive would say, look, I'm really interested in this idea,

but I got to see a casting tape. Here's five grand put together a casting tape. So at that point, it wasn't out of our pocket. That was fine. And you get through the casting tape process, and if it moved further down the approval process, then we want to see a sizzle reel. We want to see what five minutes of the show looks like.

Okay? And we would get a budget for that, usually in the area of about 25 grand. And they wanted it to be about 15 minutes. They wanted to see enough meat on the bone that they could get a feel for the show. Sometimes a network would ask for an airable pilot, meaning we're not sure we want to put this on the air, but we're going to throw more money at it. We want you to produce it as if it were going to be broadcast.

And we want to have the option of broadcasting it if we choose. Now, that's obviously a bigger commitment. And you know when you hit that level that you're about 90% of the way home is at that point, if somebody's asking you for an airable pilot, $300, $400,000, $250, down in $30,000. Maybe in today's environment, two, 200,000 for a half hour. But like I said, once you get to that point, you know you're almost home. But every process is different, too.

There were times when we had a network exec that we just, and to this day, she's a sweetheart of a person. She and her kids have been out and visit us, visit Lori and I hear in Wyoming. Her name is Melanie Moreau. she was an exact at Viacom just the coolest chick I say that with nothing but respect she's a fucking hippie

and I dig her she's got such a great personality and such a great energy and she's so creative and her daughters are just like her she's an amazing person by the way but Melanie would sometimes call us up and say hey

you guys think you could do this sometimes you have a good enough relationship strong enough relationship with that working executives that if they had an idea, they would call us and throw it our way and see if we could develop it for them. That was always fun. Because for the most part, Jason and I, I would say 80 or 90% of everything we sold was sold because he and I sat down and had a pizza and a beer together and started talking about

what if shit. I miss that. That's the one thing I do miss. I miss the collaboration. I missed that part of wrestling too but when Jason and I when we were on a role and we were in a long role

our role lasted from about 2003 till about 2015 it quit being fun about 2012 but in fact it went to 2017 that was the last show that we produced a show called Dope Man

with a friend of ours drug addict former drug addict son Odeed from drugs while our friend was in jail and he got clean turned his life around

he's now an advocate for drug rehab he's working with rehab facilities he's speaking he's speaking again I retweet him on social media all the time anyway I mean every idea was different every project was different they all developed in different ways

Let's talk about a few that maybe some of our listeners are familiar with. You did a Girls Gone Wild thing in association with WWE. How does that come about? Yeah, that was weird. I knew Joe Francis through Jason Hervey. Jason and Joe Francis had, they knew each other. Similar in age. Joe was a Hollywood guy.

Jason was a Hollywood guy. They ran into each other. Anyway, they became friends. I think Joe actually worked for Peter Goober. over at Mandalay Entertainment. Jason was also an executive at Mandalay Entertainment, and that's how they really became friends. Okay, now fast forward.

I get to know, Joe, he's cranking out these Girls Gone Wild videos. He's just printing money. I mean, my God, that guy made a freaking fortune. We're talking about tens, tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars with his project, Girls Gone Wild. before he started getting stupid and cratering himself. But I got to know Joe and there was a rumor at the time that Hugh Hefner wanted to sell Playboy. Joe was interested, I heard, you know, if I was out to lunch with Joe or in his office and when I'm,

Joe had the money and Joe was interested in purchasing Playboy. I had heard that Vince McMahon was interested in Playboy. So I got Joe Francis and Vince McMahon together at a couple different meetings. And then the idea came about is, look, Girls Going Wilde's going to be down in South Padre Island, I think, is where we were for that particular spring break. we're going to be doing this big thing. What if we create a pay-per-view and let WWE produce it? And all I do is connect the dots. I didn't really have a hand in the production of the show.

That was Kevin Dunn and the entire team. They brought the truck down, satellite trucks, big WWE truck, whole nine yards, just like, you know, they went to an event. And Kevin Dunn took over the production of it, but I was the one that brokered the deal. What about the Sturgis rally in 2004? I know, you know, we're all familiar with Roadwild and Hogwild, but you did a pay-per-view just on the Sturgis rally, I think, in 2004, 20 years ago, how does that one come to be?

That was just Jason and I. What if, you know, Sturgis was an event? It still is to the state, 300, 400, you know, depending on who you listen to, tend his figures. They're all bullshit, whether it's wrestling or Sturgis or whatever. But, yeah, I think this year I heard there was like 500,000 bikers there from all the world. Whatever the number is, it's massive. A lot of sponsorship there, a lot of money being spent in Sturgis, tons and tons and tons of money.

So Jason and I thought, having been here a few times, we knew that this event was happening 20 miles outside of the Sturgis. This event was happening 40 miles outside of Sturgis. This event is happening downtown. So our idea was to put together crews so that we could cover all of the events that are going on in Sturgis. on any given evening. Now, some of it we would have taped earlier in the day or earlier in the evening. Some of it we made, now we didn't do any live shots except for where we were hosting from. So all of it would have been pre-taped segments from either the night before or during the day.

And then we had a live band, Jackal, it was the band, a very, very popular band, kind of a southern ACDC type of band. and they were our featured live performance, and we would, music, fun, crowd, chicks flashing, everybody's having fun. Now, let's go downtown and see what's happening at the bike burnout rally. And then we'd have a correspondent there reporting from that part of Sturgis. We just put it all together so that people at home who had never been to Sturgis, we wanted to give them the most comprehensive look at every. everything that was going on in Sturgis. So that was the idea.

That's where it started. Guys, do you know how excited I am? We've got a college game day this weekend. That means Alabama football is back. You've heard me talk about it on the program forever and ever. Roll Tide, I get asked all the time. Hey, what does that mean? Dude, come on.

I was born and raced here in Alabama and college football has been a religion. I don't know if you saw, but we even just named the field. in Tuscaloosa after Nick Saban. And I don't think we should stop there. That dude could be the damn governor of Alabama. I'm such a big Nick Sabin fan. I can't believe this is a real thing, but he's actually going to be the guest on the premiere episode of the Triple

Option. Yeah. We're living in a new age of football and with the expanded college football playoff, NIL, conference, realignment, and the increasing popularity of the draft, the landscape is changing and quickly. And that's where the new podcast, the Triple I, option comes in. Each week, three-time national championship coach Urban Meyer, Heisman trophy winner Mark Ingram the second Earl Tide, and former WW champion Rob Stone? Is this real?

Team up to bring on the biggest guests in college football, pro football, and anything related to the culture of the game. They cover it all from the top stories to recent changes and shifts in the game, the culture surrounding it, and everything in between. Urban Meyer brings his championship pedigree perspective as a head coach. Ingram brings one of the game's best players ever, and well, Rob provides thoughts from over two decades

covering the game. I'm a big fan of these type of podcasts where you get a chance to take a look back and talk about current stuff. If you like the format that we do on some of my shows, where we're talking about the nostalgia and we're talking about the current stuff,

I think you're going to love this, especially being a college football guy, I mean, who's more decorated than Urban Meyer? I mean, you want to talk about a brilliant football mind. Whether you were a fan of his or not, you have to appreciate his knowledge. Same with Mark Ingram. You have no idea as an Alabama fan what a big deal it was when he won the Heisman trophy.

I can't wait to listen to this. But I do want to know, how the hell did Rob Stone get this gig and not me? Hey, let's go ahead and get in the game today. Follow and subscribe to the triple option on Apple, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcast. Watch the triple option on YouTube. New episodes drop Wednesday mornings. That's the triple option on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

And don't forget, the triple option on YouTube. New episodes drop Wednesday mornings. Let's talk a little bit about some of your other series and maybe you've got some little nuggets who can drop us. You did a bunch with VH1. Scott Bayo is 45 and single. Scott Bayle was 46 and pregnant. I want to be a Hilton Confessions of a Teen Idol.

You had a lot of success with VH1. How was VH1 to deal with? What was it like working with VH1? It was always fun. You know, the executions that we worked with, and Jason really, he dealt with the execs more on a day-to-day basis than I did. I was involved in pitches. I would be there.

but Jason Jason is a social animal and I'm not everybody that knows me knows that it's not that I don't like people it's just that I like not being around them

more so I keep you know very close friends you know of which you're obviously one, my family and you know

a few other friends but I'm not an outgoing person and that's why Jason and I work together so well Jason was very outgoing, and he just developed these great relationships with these guys. But everybody that, you know, there was never anybody that we worked with that either one of us was like, oh, hopefully you never have to work with this person again. They were always pretty cool.

Once you got to the point where you're actually producing a show, again, it became very collaborative. And for those execs, it was kind of more fun. They got to be out of the office, actually being a part of a show instead of looking at spreadsheets and listening to the people bitch about how much money they're not making in their division. So, yeah, it was always fun. Working with CMT, you had a couple of projects over there. I love CMT. We did, well, Melanie Moreau.

She was the executive at CMT. We did some projects for it. We had a whole co-good championship wrestling there. We did a show with. Billy Ray Cyrus. We did, oh, yeah, with Billy Ray. That was fun. He was kind of a cool guy.

not as much of a cornbowls as you would think. We did a show with Ted Nugent. That was awesome. I got to hang out at Ted's ranch in Waco, Texas and shoot machine guns with a fully automatic machine guns. Ted and I and Jason down and Garrett. I brought Garrett with me on that shoot. We went to Ted Nugent's ranch. We shot eight episodes there as kind of a survival show.

And not Melanie Moreau, but the. senior, I can't remember his name, the senior, senior, senior, senior guy at Viacom above CMT, actually, found out that we're doing a show with Ted Nugent because of Ted's politics. They spent, I don't know, $3 million on this show, and they paid us. We probably took down 25% of that, 20% of it at least, 10% of the executive producer fees, then we'd mark up our production fees by 10%. So we'd get 10% of the total budget. In this case, 300 grand plus another 300 grand for executive producer fees.

They paid us. And then because of politics, they just put the show up on the shelf. Never to be seen or heard from again. It's crazy. Let's talk about because you were, you had a cup of coffee with T&A. And you know a little bit, not a ton, but you probably know a little bit about the T&A relationship with Spike. how would you compare in contrast say the T&A relationship with Spike, the WCW and Turner relationship, and then the WVE relationship with Viacom, if you will?

How are those different? I mean, obviously we know the big one is, well, Turner owned WCW, so they're not negotiating with sort of an outside third party. We know at different times TNA would sort of supplement, subsidize, maybe, is a better word. some T and A stuff. But what about the WWE Viacom relationship? Is it sort of in the middle? I mean, if there's a good, better, best model,

just take us through the differences, if you will. Well, you know, I didn't see the WWE Viacom relationship firsthand. I was there as a talent. And as a talent, you're not exposed to it's one of my biggest bitches about, you know, former WCW talent back in the 90s who were, you know, all project what they think went. wrong and none of them have a fucking clue what they're talking about. Most wrestling

talent knows less about the business of the wrestling business than people that watch it on television. It's just the nature of the beast. I never, again, didn't see it firsthand. The one time I got a glimpse,

I was still talent. This was before I got into management. And for some reason, I was on the jet with Vince and a couple others. and the exec from TNN at that time. And I'd be damned if I can remember his name. Just a short little guy, kind of pudgy, very, very quiet, unassuming.

You would have never, ever picked him out, you know, of a lineup as a television and entertainment executive. He looked the opposite of that. Nonetheless, he was there. And I could just feel, and, you know, again, I was a talent. I barely knew Vince McMahon, right? But I could just tell that it was like icing taking place inside the cabin of that jet. Vince wouldn't even make eye contact with this. And I felt bad for him.

I didn't know him well enough. It wasn't my place to sit down and have a chat with the network and exec on Vince's jet. So I stayed in my lane, so to speak, and minded my own business. But I was looking to go, man, this guy feels like, I don't know why he's on this plane, but man, nobody wants him here. and I could tell. That's the only sense, and that doesn't mean I was right. I could have just been reading the room wrong,

but that was my impression. I did get a lot closer to Viacom and TNA. I developed a pretty good relationship with Kevin K. Nothing special, but a good, solid working relationship. Scott Fishman, who is not the rest of, reporter, Fishman, but Scott Fishman, the television producer, and I got along

really well. And Jeff got along with Scott Fishman. Scott Fishman was the kind of guy that could really get along with just about anybody, but he was talented. He gave you a lot of rope as a network executive, and he deferred to people in TNA who knew more about wrestling than he did. But he would stand his ground when it came to. television format and how to execute it. That's another thing that, you know, going back to Tony Con, I know you want to wrap this up here pretty quick. I'm going to try to make it fast.

Oh, I'm not. But that's an, oh, I just read it wrong then. Okay. That's another thing that I think Tony Khan take that back. That's another thing that if AEW and Turner, WBD do move forward for the life of me, I cannot figure out why David Zazloff takes some responsibility for the $45 million a year he's spending now, or hopefully more, if indeed there is a renewal, and assign a network executive to that show that demands consistently, consistency in storytelling, that understands what a story is. Forget about the fact that you don't know anything about wrestling, because that's a bullshit wrestling angle, by the way, that a lot of producers of wrestling like to pull. I watch it a million times is, well, you may know a lot about telling me, but the wrestling

business is so much different. You got to stay away from this. Vince McMahon did it successful. There's no other form of programming out there that a television network is going to spend the kind of money that they spend on wrestling and go, guys just come up with some good shit. We're happy to have you. But Jason and I were producing shows. If we actually went into production, the probably one out of seven times, we, we,

pitch a show, we'd sell it, sometimes a better than that. When we went into production, there were like network executives coming at you like bees out of a hive. Everybody wanted to have a voice. Everybody wanted their opinion expressed. Everybody in the food chain wants to make notes. Because as you're developing a show, okay, we're going to come up with this format. Let's send it around to the team at the network and get their information.

input because everybody wants to be involved. It's their jobs. In a way, it's their job security. More they're involved, and the more they contribute to projects, the more valuable they are in the eyes of their employers, right? Well, for independent producers like Jason and I, that means you got a bunch of people that don't know fuck all about what they're doing, but just really want to be involved. And for whatever reason, wrestling has been able to avoid that.

that process for the most part. For the moment that I was in WWE, I was there for the Fox Premier. I was there leading up to the Fox Premier. Part of my job as executive director of SmackDown, at least on paper, was to have daily conversations or at least regular conversations with my counterparts at Fox to make sure that

the format, know what's coming up, we have time to react to any of their concerns, they would make notes. That's what I would do. If I was David Zazloff and I was going to spend money here, I would actually be a real network executive and assign somebody who really understands storytelling

and is it going to listen to any wrestling bullshit to oversee the process. It's their real estate. It's their money. and to not have a voice in the process when that's what a lot of network is, that's what they're there for. They are there to oversee the production of the shows that air on their network. And they have to have basic understanding of format and storytelling and character development.

And all the other things that go into making a good show, that's why you end up in that position as a network executive. I would assign somebody to oversee AEW that does understand those elements and is not going to be intimidated by the fact that they don't. I don't know wrestling because that's a fucking mirage. This is just storytelling, character-driven entertainment, folks. It's not rocket science. It's really not.

It's hard. It's not easy. Not suggesting that anybody can do it, just like not everybody can play a flute. But it's also not brain surgery. We got a couple of questions on Twitter that really piqued your interest. Here's one from Big Meat. He says, Eric, with your vast knowledge in the television business, what rating system do you find to be most accurate?

Today's version of total viewers or in the Nitro era of total households. It's all voodoo. I mean, I still, look, Nielsen's the only thing we've got. There's nothing else. And until there is, that's what Madison Avenue, that street in New York, we're probably 75% of the revenue that's generated in advertising and television today. It all takes place in New York on Madison Avenue. and until there's another formula in place

that is job secure for the executives that are in the television business because they don't want some new thing coming out that's going to make their new rating system come out that's going to make their jobs harder. So as long as everybody's subscribing to Nielsen as the measurement, they're going to accept it.

I think it's all voodoo. I think it's best guess scenarios. I think there's so many variables given the sample size at Nielsen, which is relatively small. The methodology, the technology that's being used is fucking rotary phone level at this point based on what it could be.

But there's nothing else. And I don't think there's any difference. Total viewers, probably total viewers is easier for people to understand. Because when you'd look at a rating, you'd have to know the formula, figure out how many people are actually watching a 2.1 and a 5 share. Well, what the fuck does that mean? You'd have to do the math to figure it out.

So total viewers is a little easier at first glance, but I don't think it makes any difference. Another question you really liked on Twitter. This is from D.C. He says, I know the focus for AEW analysis is on North American attendance slash viewership. But is there an argument that Warner Brothers Discovery sees value in AEW is something that can put on their streaming service and have an international audience that likes wrestling. That's a really great question. Thank you, Wayne.

I love intelligent questions. And this one, it's a good one. Could be, but if we step back and look at other than Netflix and Amazon, everybody else in streaming is losing their ass. That doesn't mean there isn't a long-term strategy. in play or being considered or developed that would make AEW strategically more valuable than its current value when it comes to advertising. So in other words, they could be losing your ass and not selling enough advertising

to really justify the show, but if there is a long-term strategy that may AEW and their six or 700,000 loyal viewers shift over to a streaming platform at some point that could have value that none of us understand because we're not in that business because we're not a part of those conversations. So it could be, Wayne, I think it's a stretch at this point, mostly because streaming is just not profitable. But we'll see. again, I hate to keep always

I say, well, we'll see. Of course we'll see because we can't predict anything with any accuracy when it comes to television. Well, something we can predict is that we are going to be live here immediately following all-in this Sunday at 83 weeks.com. If you haven't already, go hit that

subscribe button, turn on the notifications bell, and make plans to join us this Sunday immediately following all-in from London. And by the way, next week, on the program, as a matter of fact, we're going to do it at 83 weeks.com. Another reason to hit that subscribe button. We're going to talk about launching the WCW Hall of Fame.

That's right. We talked about it earlier this year, and we talked about 10 people who we thought were shoe-ins. But over the next handful of days at 83 weeks.com, you'll see different categories put up, and it's up to you to include your choices. We'll take your choices and discuss them next week, and then we'll present the top four choices for the following categories for your votes. And then we're going to induct them into the 83 weeks Hall of Fame. For the 29th anniversary of the Monday Nitro debut, the categories are tag teams.

We want to know who do you think for the most influential and important Hall of Fame-worthy tag teams in WCW history. What about a behind-the-scenes player? Somebody who maybe didn't get their flowers in front of the camera, but boy, they were a big call. in the wheel, known as World Championship Wrestling. A generational influencer? Immediately, I think there's a masked man who we all think of. But maybe there are others. What about a group or a faction?

Whether it was the horseman or the NWO or there's probably a handful of others, but it's a short list when you're talking about greatness like that in WCW. And then a single star. So if we're going to craft like year one, a class, a Hall of Fame class, if you will, for a WCW Hall of Fame. What would that look like? We want your input. You can vote on that over the next five days at 83 weeks.com.

We want to hear your suggestions. Let's hear those nominees. And then we'll go ahead and discuss it next week. And then you guys will vote and ta-da. As we celebrate the 29th anniversary of Nitro. What a crazy sentence that is. We'll talk about the very first class for the WCW Hall of Fame here on 83 weeks. Eric, I had a blast talking about the television business, and I have a feeling.

I don't have any inside information, but I have a feeling. I mean, if I knew I had a deal, this would be the week to announce it. So hopefully, knock on wood, we hear that AEW got a new great television deal. That's great for the wrestling business, whether you're a fan of AEW or not. If they get an increase and it's a sizable increase, having another profitable wrestling company is a good thing. I think we're all pulling for that. Any final notes from you this week, Mr. Bischoff, before we put a button on this one and get ready for Sunday?

No, man, but I do like doing this kind of show every once in a while to ask Eric formats, because as much as I love talking about nostalgia and going back and watching shows from the 90s or whatever, it is fun to talk about the business of the wrestling business and certainly discussing television is a great way to do that. So thank you. And thank you to everybody, Derek Sabato, Dave Silva,

for putting this all together and I dig it. Stay tuned, boys and girls. We'll be back this Sunday at 83 Weeks.com immediately following AEW All-In. Come join Eric and I. We're going to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly from Wembley Stadium. And next week,

we're going to start talking a little bit about a WCW Hall of Fame. What if, do my favorite words in the English language. We'll see you there, right here, actually, at 83 weeks. com. SavewithConrad.com.

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We saved quite a bit. And in the long run, we're going to do a lot better with Save With Conrad than we would have anywhere else. It was absolutely beautiful. You know, like, Larry and Francis were absolutely, they were the greatest. Not only were they professional, knew what they were talking about, they were friendly, and they cared about the job they were doing, which was so important to me.

I would absolutely recommend Save with Conrad to anybody. This is Mark Taggart from Rancho, Illinois, and I wanted to do some home improvements and spend down a little debt, and I got hold of Save with Conrad, and we did incredibly. NMLS number 2129, Equal Housing Lender, SavewithConrad.com.