83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff #31: AEW Collision Debut and WWE to Disney?

Episode Date: June 16, 2023

In this edition of "Strictly Business," Eric Bischoff and Jon Alba look ahead at the ramifications of and expectations for AEW Collision's debut this weekend, and react to rumors of Disney and Amazon's interest in WWE TV rights. Special thanks to this week's sponsor! BlueChew- Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code WRESTLEBIZ at checkout--just pay $5 shipping. FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.com/ Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at SaveWithConrad.com On AdFreeShows.com, you get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, starting at just $9! And now, you can enjoy the first week...completely FREE! Sign up for a free trial - and get a taste of what Ad Free Shows is all about. Start your free trial today at AdFreeShows.com If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on Strictly Business. 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 AdvertiseWithEric.com now and find out more about advertising with Strictly Business. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get rid of your credit card debt, get a lower monthly payment, and skip your next two house payments at save withconrad.com. NMLS number 65084, equal housing lender. You don't need perfect credit or money out of your pocket to save thousands with save withconrad.com. Find out how much money you can save right now at save with Conrad.com. How's it going, everyone? It's time for another edition of Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff, presented to you by the ad-free shows and podcast heat networks. I'm John Alba, joined as I am every single week by the man of the hour. Join us from downstairs this week.

Mr. Eric Bischoff, how are we, man? We're good. And Mrs. B and I just got back from Florida last night and having some work done out in my studio. So kind of improvving here a little bit from the kitchen table, so to speak. Okay. Gearing up for the big head shaving here? Well, let's see. You know, everybody's just jumping to the conclusion and I've lost that bet. And I won't concede that I lost that bet until after.

the event is over but we'll see and if i do i do i'm a man of my word i don't watch on my bets i made the bet as much as i take pride in this amazing head of hair even at this advanced stage of my life it's still a pretty amazing head of hair and you know it'll be it'll be tough but if if it goes that way and i have to shave my head then i have to shave my head i think you'll look great either way you always do and and you know the thing too about it eric is that it is for a good cause isn't it? It is indeed. We've got a little bit of a competition going on where if you're going to be there, if you're one of the top guys, you're going to be at the event. You can put in a bid or a donation to St. Jude's. All that information is probably going to be available here on a

graphic because I don't have the details sitting in front of me. But you register, you make your donation. And if you get the highest bid, then you indeed get too shaved by head. And if someone from outside, because this is open to people from all over the world. So let's say Mick Mack from Australia, who I know is already in the bidding, right, ends up winning. Now, he's obviously not going to be there, but let's just say Mick Mack were to jump on a jet, fly all the way to Huntsville from, I think he lives in Melbourne, and be up there.

Well, he would shave half my head in our ad-free shows. Top guy member, who is the next highest bidder, would shave the other half of my head. So it's going to be a group effort. here's the details guys donate now at cut erics hair dot com this is all valid through june 21st at 1159 p.m eastern standard time as eric said the highest donor will get a chance to cut eric's hair at top guy weekend all the proceeds going to st jude children's research hospital i'm i'm getting a good look there eric and you know as you can see on the graphic this is not foreign territory for you you have been in this chair before yeah but i was paid significant amount of money to do it

there's a little bit of difference here this is me losing a bet as opposed to picking up a check that's a valid point that's a valid point well i know that you're going to look great and it's for a good cause so make sure you guys go ahead and check that out the mediocre warrior join us on adfree shows dot com says this is my first live show well that's one of the great perks that you get here on ad free shows you get to join us for these live recordings it is a lot of fun rosy's joining us he said i had a i had to seattle for a tournament tomorrow but i couldn't miss strictly business and why would you miss strictly business 83 weeks dot com and free shows dot com we talked the business of the business last week eric we got to talk

to belts by dan and i thought we had a pretty cool conversation about the business of wrestling belts what did you take away from that you know it's just it's always fascinating to to learn about the business within the business you know the the the the the the the whole belt collectible belt and replica belt business just wasn't really a thing, you know, back when I was running WCW and prior to that, obviously. But it's emerged, you know, it's emerged as a big business. And there's a lot of, there's a lot of belt collectors out there, including our own Conrad Thompson. And by the way, Coach Rosie is on. Now, coach, I'm sorry. I just got home late last night. Not really all together. I'm not the most organized

person to begin with. But when I've been traveling as much as I have, it gets even worse. So, Coach, if you could do me a favor, I know we want to talk about the event that's taking place in El Paso and in honor of Eddie Guerrero. I don't have that information here, but if you can cue that up here in the comments.

And by the way, we're talking about Coach Rosie and The Mediocre Warrior and James Coelho and all kinds of folks. They're here in our ad-free show studio audience. And if you're a member of the ad-free show's team family, then you too can listen to these shows live. But Coach, if you can get that up for me, we will plug away.

The Warrior says it's going to be a swerve, and Vince Russo will show up to do the head shaving. That'd be funny, wouldn't it? Would be something. There's no doubt about that. Now, Eric, we're going to spend the majority of this episode talking about a very interesting story that came out this week regarding WWE

and potential media rights deals in the near future. But I would be remissed. if we did not try to throw something at the wall here. I love making predictions on the show. Sometimes you do. Sometimes you don't. We have the first edition of Collision this week. It is coming to a Saturday from Chicago.

It will be airing on the Turner Networks. How are the tickets doing for that, John? Do you know? I can check on that right now as I ask you this question. But I'll ask you, with the NBA finals done, the NHL Stanley Cup playoffs are over. can you give us just a hypothetical prediction for viewership for this first episode what you think this may end up polling i have no idea i don't track saturday night television audiences never have so i have no idea i i would

imagine if collision delivers somewhere in the 600 000 uh persons two plus that that would probably be considered reasonably successful. Maybe very successful. Again, I'm just not sure about the night, you know. But based on, you know, Dynamite's been on now for what, four years, three or four years? October 2019. Wednesday nights, you know, obviously NBA competition kind of messes things up for everybody. But, you know, if Dynamite is doing 850.

to a million on average, which is what they've been doing for the last whatever year, I would think six or seven, 600,000 viewers would be considered a great outing. But what will it do? I don't know. I don't see a lot of promotion for it outside of the Turner Networks. I've seen some promotion for it on Turner Networks, but I haven't seen a lot of promotion outside of the network. So I think it's, I think they're promoting to the choir.

that's already a member of the church, so to speak, and not really doing much to promote outside of their current audience. So I wouldn't anticipate anything huge. I could be wrong. You know, I'm often wrong. But I, well, not that often. I'm actually, I'm more right than I am wrong, especially when it comes to this stuff.

I don't know. We'll see. I would say if they hit, like I said, 600, that's a win. if they deliver anything less than 3.50, I would start thinking twice about my strategy. Oh, man, I'll tell you, if they deliver less than 350, which that's comparable to what Rampage is doing on Friday nights, I think there would be a major need to reassess what the game plan is for this. Again, this is going to be presented very similar to A.W. Dynamite in terms of the importance on television. they will be A, B shows that will kind of be in the same vein of Ron Smackdown. So it's going to be interesting to see.

I pulled up the ticket map, this per Ticketmaster, the official resale for the event. Those were the tickets that were left listed. If you're watching us on YouTube, 83 weeks on YouTube, you can see. So pretty packed building based on what's listed there. Of course, there are tickets still that get dropped the day of the event. sometimes production changes and they open up more spots but based off that i don't see any purple resale dots there and those are the tickets left to be sold and they're just kind of in the high upper deck well let me let me point out the reason i asked the question is i had a member

of our ad free show's family uh reach out to me last night i'm not going to mention his name because i don't want to put any heat on him because he's a eW fan and he's going to go to the show uh because he got free tickets. AEW is giving tickets away. So that's, you know, papering the house. Interesting. Just got that info last night.

Do we know the circumstances in which they got free tickets? Like, this is going to be an outlier. This individual was a veteran, and there is a site that is offering free tickets to veterans, and he was offered four tickets,

and he took two. Okay. Well, I will say here, being fair, not nice, being fair, that's not uncommon. in the sports or entertainment industry for comps to be given to veterans or teachers or stuff like that. No, no. Again, it's not being negative.

It's just it's about ticket availability. No, I didn't, I do not mean for this to come off as negative because a lot of your, you know, when you book a building, the building gets X amount of tickets that they can in turn use to work with local promoters and advertisers and sponsors. and, and yeah, you know, it's not unusual. It was just notable that there's still tickets out there. In the height of Nitro's heyday, were you able to comp a lot of tickets for stuff like that? We didn't. Were we able to?

I refrained as much as possible. And because of my experience at Turner, before I got into management, you know, the promotional team in WCW, for what it's worth, what it was worth. You know, they papered the house. So they papered everything. They papered TV tapings. They papered pay-per-views. And, you know, people talk a lot about how creative can kill a market.

You know, let me tell you how you really kill a market is giving away free tickets and papering the house because you can't get people to buy the tickets. So you're forced to paper them and give them away as promoting. emotional things, hoping that warm bodies will show up in those seats. The problem with that is, is once you get the market conditioned to get things for free, it's very, very difficult to ever get them to pay for it. So it's tricky, but it's a balancing act. I want to talk about the event going on.

Where'd you go? Where'd you go? Where'd you go? Okay. Next week, this is coming from Coach Rosie. Next week in El Paso, Texas. Eddie Guerrero will go into the El Paso, Athletic Hall of Fame.

I will send John the event Brightling for the ticket. And he's going to be, and he's going to be enshrined by his brother, Hector. If I was available, I would love to be there for that. If you're listening to this episode and you're anywhere within 200 miles of El Paso, I would invite you to join in that celebration.

Man, what are we going on? We are, this is 2023. We are going on. 18 years since Eddie's passing, which is insane to think about as is just still his residence has felt today among everyone. I think any opportunity to honor Eddie Guerrero is one worth being in attendance for should you be able to. Yeah, man, I think I think your number is probably in the general wheelhouse, the 600, 650,000. Why do you think what, John, I'm going to ask you though, why? I'm not challenging here.

I'm just curious. If Rampage is, what is it? I don't even pay attention to Rampage numbers. Typically, $400,000, $450,000. They're in the general like $350,000 to $400,000, high $400. So why would, why should anybody think that Saturday night's going to do any better than a Friday night? So I think the difference in these shows is going to be star power and presentation. And I think for your audience, which again, that's ultimately who A.A.W. is playing to its audience, as you like to say on the show, the hardcore wrestling fan that loves A.W. If you give them a show that quality-wise is of similar value to A.A.W. Dynamite and features talent that are of similar caliber to those on A.E.W. Dynamite, I think you'll see higher numbers than what Rampage is delivering. Just by version.

of okay here are more important players here are stories that are going to be more meaningful whereas rampage the structure of it pretty much is here's three wrestling matches here's what you're going to watch you got an hour at 10 o'clock on Friday nights and there is a difference too between 8 o'clock even on a Saturday and 10 o'clock and I think that is something that there's merit to having that slot rather than 10 o'clock that's why I think those variables together Eric will combine and create more success I think out of the gate they'll probably draw maybe around 700 to start and then I think you'll see the curiosity start to fade away just a little bit based on trends we've seen with programming across the board and well I mean you bring up an interesting point and that's I want to follow up on that just a bit um go back to the premiere of Smackdown on Fox I happen to be there um I was the executive director of that show when it debuted uh 3.8 million viewers They probably lost 30 to 40% of their audience over the course of 30 days.

So those people came, they saw, and they didn't come back. We've seen that typically. It happens in other shows, too, not just in wrestling. We have a big premiere, people sample it. They decide whether or not it's worth coming back for the following week. You typically lose, I say typically, the shows that I've tracked, generally lose 30 to 40% of the premier audience. So it's important that, again, I don't know if it's important or not.

Maybe nobody gives it to them. Who knows? I don't know what the strategy is at Turner. This may be a long game for them, and they're not too concerned about numbers for the first year, two years. That's entirely possible. In fact, it's more likely than it is unlikely that it's a long-term play for them. um in which case nothing really matters um unless it's not a long-term play then there's

going to be some significant concern because you if if if if the collision show comes in at 600,000 and they lose 180 over the course of time consistent with how other programs have done you look at dynamite when dynamite premiered 1.4 million 1.5 million people down to a million uh within weeks within a week so again 30 40 percent or more of of your premier audience doesn't come back if that same range of deterioration occurs on collision you could be down to 350,000 viewers pretty damn quick unless something really special happens on that show that gets the world talking and gets everybody excited again and makes them forget about some of the stuff that's going on in the last six

months and if it feels fresh and it's entertaining and it's a little different than my god please somebody give me different than that's what i was going to ask you about i was going to ask you about that you said presentation and different than you've watched enough a w dynamite by this point i know much of your gripes come with the story structure and how stories are presented on the television show but maybe aesthetically or production wise is there anything that you would do if you were sitting in that chair to offer something different for this show no i think it has to be when i'm in terms of presentation i don't think you can there's not much you can do that's different than there's a lot that i think AEW can do production wise that could be better than they're

currently doing. And sometimes the shows look great. Don't get me wrong. I know Mike Mansour and I know what Mike Mansour is capable of. And sometimes the shows look pretty damn good. But there are other times, even recently when I've dropped in over the last month or two, when I went, ooh, it's kind of ugly in a way. You know, it just doesn't have that, it's just not bright. It doesn't have that pop. It doesn't feel like a major event. Now, some of that can be because of a, you know, Sometimes venues don't have, sometimes some venues are better to light and sound than others. Sometimes you just don't have a big enough audience, so you've got to kind of cut the house lights down. I know that, you know, I was looking at it the other day, and it looks like a lot of AEW's dynamite shows have in a range of, they put them typically, you know, there are exceptions, five, six, seven thousand seat arenas.

they're configured for that's big that's a great audience and you can make it look good but it's not like 15,000 people where you're big sweeping wide shots you know put a wide angle a little bit of wide angle lens on it make it look like you're in the super bowl you know there's a lot of things you could do when you've got a lot of people it in scale you can make it look so much better and sometimes you know some of these venues are smaller venues you don't have that opportunity I wouldn't I don't think that production really needs to be upgraded too much a little bit because as I've said from the very beginning one of the things I like about AEW's production is it feels a little gritty you know

I can almost smell the stale beer under my seat you know or or or or or our last week's popcorn still in you know back in the storage room somewhere I kind of like that I like the little bit of gritty feel I wouldn't mess with it too much but the look of talent there's a there's there's there's such a sameness uh to the presentation of the characters and to the and to the characters themselves that and again exceptions yes but uh i just feel like it needs i don't even know how to say it other than to brighten it up just a bit make it a little more colorful there's a there's a blandness to the presentation that I think could be improved and make it feel a little bigger,

a little bit more like big time. Now, are you comparing that to WWE's production style or are you saying that based on your taste? So it's your opinion that the WW production style leads to a better presentation. Do I have that correct? It's a different presentation. The WWE has always emphasized production. I think if AEW were to try to mimic or copy the WWE production look, they would probably fail miserably, and I don't think that's necessary.

I think you can have a gritty, a grittier feel, but still enough diversity in your characters. And I'm talking about the presentation of your characters, there's great diversity ethnically in the locker room and it's not that but I mean the look and the feel of these characters could use a little bit more diversity but the real difference

is got to be in the presentation the overall presentation primarily as it relates to the character development it's kind of what I've been talking about for the last couple minutes and definitely

the storytelling and the structure of the show there's got to be a framework and a structure of the show in a format that's episodic that gives you that sense of i've got to tune in next week to see what's going to happen beyond hey next week this guy's going to wrestle this guy this girl's going to wrestle this girl tune in it's going to be the best night of a w wrestling in the history of the company give me something different you know that's what made again I almost hate to bring this up, but nitro succeeded because it was in every way possible different than WWE. That's why it worked. That's why WWE copied the nitro formula because it worked.

AEWs got to, and I don't have the answer, by the way, but they've got to find a way to feel different than WW. and have something unique that the WWE doesn't have. And right now, you know, you got blood and they swear every once in a while. But that's, that's, we've seen all that. But understand my pushback here is for the sake of argument, okay, you're saying that it's got to be different. And I agree entirely. I think AW being different than WW is what caused AW to come into existence in the first place.

was a need for something different. There was a desire for something different than WWE in the wrestling space. But then I hear you talk about lightning up production style more in the vein of WWE or we talk about storytelling things done in a way that's more similar to WWE. Isn't that washing across it then? No, we're not clamoring. And I think, obviously, I'm not doing a good job explaining myself.

Does the audio sound better now? I think I got like Google Chromeback. No, look, to be as clear as I can be, fine-tune production, give it a little more color, a little more diversity in the characters, the way the characters are presented, and better character development. So you don't have such a sameness that threads through your roster in the way it's presented. That's not clamoring to be similar to WWE. It's a very, it's no different than any other television show where you have a cast of characters.

In wrestling's case, it's a roster, but you've got a cast of characters that have to complement each other. If your cast of characters are all very similar, sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly, then there's a sameness to your cast and it becomes less interesting. That's what I'm saying. That's not clamoring to be similar to WWE. in in terms of production, tweak here, tweak there, lighten it up, brighten it up a little bit. What really, and the storytelling can be as diverse and different than WWE as you want to make it. That's where creativity comes in and your imagination comes in. But what's required in order to have a great story that's unique and feels different because you're getting that type of story

in AEW and you're not getting that type of story in WWE is that you have a formula and a structure and you understand storytelling that's what's lacking that's part of the presentation yes WWE is especially over the last year has said for the most part not completely for the most part it's a pretty phenomenal storytelling and structure and discipline and that's what's missing in my opinion from the AEW product. But you can have great storytelling, great character development, and doing it a way that doesn't feel like WWE.

Because I think Turner is, at least it seems to me, is giving AEW a lot more latitude. They could. This is a bad idea because it's already been done, you know. But it could be done differently, I guess. But the more adult theme of what I've seen when I watch at EW is something that they could build upon, not by going more extreme and pushing the boundaries even further, but by using that flexibility, that creative freedom and

those extra paints on the palette that you can use that your competition can't to enhance your storytelling somehow. I think doing things outside of the ring, the storytelling outside of the ring is so critically important. The storytelling, here's a way that you could, it would be kind of a throwback in a way, but having play-by-play and color announcers that are actually storytellers and helping to thread a cohesive story

that's consistent with the overall arc of an angle or storyline between two or more wrestlers would go a long way to improve that presentation. And WWE's not doing that. I don't like WWE's play about playing in color. I don't, never have. Well, I did a long time ago when Ross was there, but I don't enjoy it now. I think they're leaving a lot on the table now.

And so is AEW. Tony Schiavani's a good friend. I like him, love and dearly. He's a great talent, far better announcer than I ever was. But I'm not hearing the Tony Chivani that I know we're capable of hearing. There's just no great storytelling going on in the ring. I know the story of the match. but that's not a story arc that's one thing that i think they could really do differently and

improve upon and be different than wwee in the process got a question from mike here on the a fs and he says do you think that since us older folks are usually home relaxing on friday nights more traditional based wrestling would hit a bigger number guys like ftr punk murro etc that's a good thought right and it kind of makes sense um yeah i mean that's a you know I'm hesitating because, again, I don't know that Saturday night audience as a rule. But it just makes sense to me, like Mike said, that you're going to have a much older demo on a Saturday night than you're going to have during the week. We'll see. I don't know.

But I would. I would if I wanted to be successful. I would emphasize a lot more of the. additional presentation. I would, I would do a lot of callbacks. God, they've got a lot of talent there, right, that have been around for a minute. You know, I would, I would have some callbacks, some sit down interviews, comparing current talent to, you know, get, get Jim Ross engaged again, man.

Jim's, Jim's underutilized. This is a guy that represents professional wrestling to generations of people. And if you get him interested, he's really, really, really good at it. but yeah that's what i mean by different then there's so many things that they could be doing that's different than wwee that isn't like reinventing the wheel you know it's so interesting eric and i'm curious if you know the answer to this do you know which wrestling show on tv has the at the oldest median age of a viewer right now if you had to guess of the major of the major show the major wrestling shows on tv

I don't know why, but I'd have to pick raw. You think it's raw? It's actually NXT, which is so fascinating to me. And I've yet to see an example as to why that is. But the average age of an NXT viewer consistently for the last two plus years since we moved to USA is 53 to 55, which is so interesting to me. Tuesday nights at 8 o'clock, you'd think. that'd be a pretty desirable time slot for television, especially for 18 to 49, but it's 53 to 55. That's the primary median age for NXT, a developmental television show with

younger talent on it. Kind of breaking the tropes there. Well, yes and no, that show is presented in a very traditional, small, like old studio wrestling. Um, yeah, I can't explain it man well there's a positive to that eric because we recognize that once you hit age 53 55 sometimes you need a little extra help and our friends over at blue chew want to help you out as you're watching nxti imagine eric you're sitting on the couch watching nxte it's over at 10 o'clock you think your day's done then all the sun get that little extra kick from your instinct and you see over in the corner of your counter see one of those blue chew packets i think it's time to go to work what do you think yeah i mean that's one scenario another one would

be you're sitting there on the couch watching wrestling your wife's looking at you or your significant other whatever the case may be is looking at you like i can't believe you're still this age you're over 55 years old and you're watching children wrestle here take one of these and come upstairs. Perhaps that's a more realistic scenario than the one that I presented. But the bottom line is, you've got Bluetooth in your pocket. Blue Chew is a unique online service that delivers the same active ingredients as Viagra, Cialis, and Lovietra, but in chewable tablets and at a fraction of the cost, you can take them any time day or night, whether it's before NXT or after NXT. And the process to get it done is simple. Sign up at Bluetooth.com. Consult

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would say right now blue choo they want to help you have better sex discover your options at blu dot com chew it and do it you got a special deal for our listeners here eric try blue chew free when you use our promo code wrestle biz w r-st t le b i z and check out just pay five $2.5 shipping. That's bluechew.com promo code wrestle biz to receive your first month absolutely free. Visit bluchu.com for more details and important safety information. And we thank Bluechoo for sponsoring this edition of Strickley Business. Hey guys, Double J. Jeff Jared. Need to call a timeout real quick here. I wanted to tell your listeners what I've been telling my world listeners for a while now. It's about all the incredible things happening over on atfreesows.com.

support and faith, one half of TNA's America's most wanted Chris Harris has persevered, and wrestling is still a big part of his life. And on a brand new series, The False Finish, Chris Harris tells us the story of his amazing journey in his own words. I was thinking of myself then when that came about, you know, it's hard going through what I went through and not think, you know, would that have happened had I not had a sober head? I mean, or, you know, I have God looking out for I mean, you know, would something like that have happened in any other circumstances? Because Scott DeMore, I mean, I kept in touch with him. He knew about it all.

So, and he was so proud of me for doing it. So maybe that had a little piece of it that maybe that's why the opportunity was there. But just a lot of really great things have happened in the past couple years. And I'm just so thankful and I'm grateful for being in the place I am now. Hey, that's just a small taste of what Ad Free Shows has waiting. for you, including a brand new perk, getting to join in on the live recordings of the shows with four levels to choose from, see for yourself, while AdFree Shows is the best value in wrestling today. Sign up now at atfreeshoes.com. That's right, sign up today at adfreeshows.com.

Okay, Eric, let's get into this big story from this week, and I'm really excited to dive into this with you. We have reached the end of the exclusive negotiation rights window for WWE with USA, or I should say, NBC Universal and the Fox Corporation. So now the WWTV rights, which expire in fall of next year, are pretty much up for grabs. And there's been a lot of discourse in the last week over, oh, is someone going to try to get in? And the one name that emerged in the last week was Disney. And Andrew Marshan from the New York Post was the first to get into this. And with Disney getting involved, he says it's not necessarily the traditional avenue of ESPN plus that many are suggesting, but instead, FX could be a contender for WWE's broadcast rights. Now, this article is available on the New York Post, but it is behind a paywall so as able to get a few snippets from it.

You can go check out the entire article should you like to. But he notes that Comcast pays $265 million per year for Rock. $205 million per year for Friday Night Smackdown and that while it's early in the process, Disney is one that has shown a lot of interest in this with FX being the cable placement. In regards to streaming being the answer, he notes that Peacock's five-year deal is not up until March 2026. So having streaming be the exclusive home of WWE television is not in the near future per him. And he estimates that Fox is drawing in the low to mid-twos, in terms of millions, and strong 18 to 49, while raw is just around $2 million per episode.

He also adds that in addition to FX, a big player that could be involved in WWE's media rights negotiation could be Amazon Prime Video. And they even list Warner Brothers Discovery and Apple as Dark Horse candidates. I'll pause right there because I know when you hear those three, entities, Amazon Prime, Warner Brothers Discovery, and Apple. That's probably outside of the realm of what many people were thinking, Eric, especially in the case of Warner Brothers Discovery. He goes on to say that Warner Brothers Discovery, just because it has AEW, that doesn't mean that they would necessarily shy away from adding more professional wrestling programming. What's your instinctive take when I throw some of those names out there at you? Not surprised at Warner Discovery. In fact, I would be surprised if Warner Discovery didn't attempt to bid on, to purchase WWE. I don't know that as a fact, but would not be surprised based on some inside.

You're saying for when they were up for sale? When they were up for sale. Yeah, I think there was a, I would have to be surprised if there was an interest on Warner Discovery's part in purchasing WWE. So I'm certainly not surprised that they would be interested in possibly acquiring the rights for one or both of the shows. The flip side of that is, I can tell you from personal experience,

Vince McMahon doesn't play well with others. And it is unlikely, in my opinion, very unlikely, like I would fall over, shocked, and need to be resuscitated if this were not the case. But I don't see Vince McMahon wanting to be in business with a network that's carrying other wrestling, no matter whose it is. That's been his pattern since day one. When you do business with WWE, you're doing business with WWE.

You're not doing business with WWE and other wrestling companies, whether that's television, whether that's licensing and merchandising. it's not the way Vince operates. What do you think about the notion of the Turner Network's potentially hosting congruent wrestling programs? To me, that feels like saturation and you're almost shooing yourself in the foot with that. Well,

it's one of the reasons why I don't think Vince would do it. He just, for that exact reason, it doesn't make any sense. It's, are you going to become the wrestling network? At what point, you know,

like TNT was the drama network and then it was TBS was the comedy network and you know this network through that network and now they're going to be the wrestling network because they've got five hours of WWE and however many hours of AEW I don't see it I just don't see it Apple is an interesting one for me we've seen Apple get much more into the live event space in the last couple of years they currently have a deal with major league baseball where they're casting select games of the week and sometimes with exclusive windows where the only way you're able to actually watch it is through being an Apple TV plus subscriber. When I throw the name Apple out there, that's a huge, huge name in the business space.

Could you see a working relationship there with WWE? I mean, it's conceivable because if you look at, you know, look at the reason that Ted Turner believes so much in professional wrestling back when he was launching the Superstasy, station you know he believed that wrestling was a stable audience there was always going to be an audience for wrestling and they'd be a loyal audience and you can build upon that audience you know if you can get however many people ted was getting on wcw into early days two million two and half million people to watch your show those are two and a half million people that you can promote other shows on your network too and that's that's important one of the reasons why a lot of

believe that Ted was willing to produce WCW distributed indefinitely even though it was losing money. It wasn't the case, but a lot of people felt that way. Because it really wasn't the urgency for it to be profitable. They're talking about before I got there and even after I was there as a talent. It was all about just providing great programming and getting good numbers. And even I've read a biography of Ted Turner by guy by the name Porter Bibb. BIB. It's very interesting. You should read it. I read it a while ago. but essentially in that in that biography it talked about you know ted's view of rustling and why he believed in it and it was to help build the network if you think about how you know apple or any other streaming network

they're wanting to build their subscription base what better way to do that than to have two or three million um loyal dedicated wrestling fans uh they can only get that product if they subscribe generate revenue to Apple or any other streaming platform. So I think mathematically and strategically, it makes sense. My question would be how Nick Kahn and Vince view the future of WWE five years from now if it's not available on cable, if it's only available by subscription. I don't know. No indication.

But that's a big leap. That's a big, big leap. Well, that's also the fact that you're not getting an all-in-one service where, hypothetically, if you had a deal with Comcasts where you were streaming raw on Peacock, a fan could subscribe for that. They're going to get Raw Live, plus they're getting all the library, plus they're getting PLEs all in one place. Whereas in a situation like this, they'd say Apple had exclusivity over it,

or Amazon Prime had exclusivity over it for the live broadcast. rights, they would then need to be subscribed to another subscription service in Peacock just to get the PLEs or to get the library. And that's a lot of confusion for the consumer, I feel like. Absolutely. Absolutely is. He mentions Amazon specifically that he expects them to be pretty in on their negotiations and specifically mentions as well that Amazon has expressed a lot of interest in big standalone events. So maybe if Amazon didn't get in on full-scale rights to Monday Night Raw or Smackdown. Maybe they find a way to do a Saturday night's main event on Amazon Prime.

And he points to Amazon having the Thursday night football franchise for a billion dollars a year, by the way. And the equity that comes with that. He even references if Amazon God and Al Michaels enthusiastically reading WWE promos on a Thursday and to a Friday, makes some sense as a promotional tool. Amazon, Eric, this is a gargantuan brand. certainly seems like it would make a lot of sense for me for them to be in on these negotiations. Indeed, especially with their investment in the NFL, clearly.

It's a good fit. What do you like about them as a partner? As I just mentioned, they wouldn't be able to get full-scale library rights. Look at Amazon as a company. You've got a 360-degree view of the world with that company. You know, think about the, Think about the synergy as much as I hate using it where I really do hate use it. It just pains me.

But licensing, merchandising, man, could be, it presents a huge opportunity. You know, I don't know enough about the Amazon business model to see all of the synergy. But, you know, even out here in the middle of nowhere, Wyoming, you know, all I see is Amazon on prime trucks going up and down the road, you know, I don't know. I think the cross-promotional opportunity would be the biggest thing. But that brings it back to Disney where this conversation originates. And to me, Eric, Disney is such a sensical partner for WWE in so many different ways, but particularly with the intellectual property and thinking where the IP can be licensed

in a multitude of Disney properties. you've got the theme parks you've got Disney Plus you've got the ESPN networks you've got FX here to me that is a match made in promotional heaven and I was surprised that Disney wasn't more in on WWE during the sale but I think a couple of the factors included that Disney was doing some cost cutting number one and number two I'm curious if Disney would have allowed

Vince McMahon to have the degree of involvement that endeavor ultimately ended up letting him have where do you see Disney fitting in in the ranks of these negotiations right i think disney makes the most sense for every every reason that you just pointed out between fx espn the the licensing and merchandising opportunities at the disney it's still hard for me man i was the guy that first started shooting wrestling at disney mjum studios and i remember sitting in a meeting now obviously it's this it's a different time different world different situation but i'll never forget i'm sitting in a room david crock and

was with me. And there was about eight or ten executives kind of sitting in a U-shaped formation in this room. And David and I were in the middle, and we're making a presentation because we wanted to produce Worldwide Wrestling, our syndicated show. We wanted to produce that at the Disney MGM Studios. And all of these execs at Disney MGM were sitting there, and with the exception of one guy, his name was Bob Allen. They're all sitting there like this. while we're presenting to them. You know, they're looking down. They're looking over their eyebrows.

They're going to scowl in her face or arms across. The only guy. And fortunately, he was the guy, Bob Allen. He was running the park at the time. So his decision was final. But everybody else, like they didn't want wrestling anywhere near the theme park. Not anywhere near it. When Bob Allen finally, you know, we did our presentation, we left.

Bob was, you know, happy as hell. He was a very cool guy. And shook as he says, look, let me do, let me do what I do, and I'll get back to you in a week or so. And he had to politic, and he finally got everybody to agree to, you know, allow us to produce professional wrestling at the Disney MGM studios, under several conditions. One of which is we had to bust the wrestlers into the soundstage in a bus with the windows covered because they didn't want park guests to see a bus full of professional wrestlers entering the soundstage. entering the park. The wrestling talent was not allowed to go anywhere outside of the soundstage, unless it was to their car or whatever. But, you know, if they got into their civilian clothes and they were just out with their families, great, you can do whatever you want to do. But in their gear

during the course of the day, because we would shoot from 10 o'clock in the morning until 5 o'clock in the afternoon, just straight through the day. And all the talent was confined to the building. They weren't allowed to go walk around to the park because they just didn't want any contact with professional wrestling and their guests. And now we're talking about an Undertaker Thrill ride at

Disney MGM Studios. It's kind of crazy. I love it. Mickey Mouse walking around with his John Sina, you can't see me shirt. And you'd have to suspect that that could be extremely plausible. And honestly, I always remember those conversations

where Stephanie McMahon, who I understand no longer involved, but she would say, you know, we want WWE to be like Marvel. Bianca Bel Air or Charlotte Flair are characters, their IP that WWE owns. You could have walk around Charlotte Flares at a theme park.

It's not implausible to suggest that. No, I agree. I think there's a ton of opportunity there. And you're right about Disney. You know, you go back eight months ago, year ago. There's a lot of, there's been a lot of, changeover at the very top at Disney in terms of management there's been Disney's been hit pretty hard over the last year and a half two years so it

it didn't surprise me that they didn't jump in I don't know if the Vince McMahon thing had anything to do with it or not but I think financially it wouldn't have made sense at that time for shareholder value we'll see I I would that's where I would put my money because it makes the most sense what do you think amazon's got the most money so there you go you know apple you know pretty aggressive they got a buck or two in the bank who knows it's going to be fun to watch what do you think about the notion of fx being the one carrying it rather than in espn i just don't you know i don't know how big the fx footprint is in terms of availability you know what is turner's

probably a 90 some million homes you know um USA probably similar maybe a few more very few more I don't know about FX if they're only available in 75 80 million homes that's an issue trying to find the so okay so this was as of September 2018 so five years ago so this number probably has dropped some since some of this is the most recent i can find it was 89.2 million as of five years ago huh that's more than i thought but was that was that when it was part of fox uh i believe so yeah i believe it was yeah we'll look into that and see what it's doing now but it's just not that popular of a network you know it's like tbs is a that's another thing that's very misleading when something when a network is a very misleading when something when a network is a

available like weather channel is available in a hundred million homes but how anybody watches it unless you're living in a part of the country where there's a hurricane or something right not a lot of people watch a weather channel but it's available in a hundred million homes so you're going to be a little careful about just because it's available doesn't mean anybody's watching i feel like fx also carries a little bit of a premium brand cologne with it you know you hear FX and it's not quite HBO per se but I do feel there's some degree of studiousness associated with the name FX they're you know wearing movies and programming like that it'd be interesting especially then if when the peacock deals up if Disney were to hypothetically get this

you could then utilize the ESPN plus platform more and house a lot of WWE programming on there the library on there or maybe that that could be the long play too and by the way missisbee don't worry about noise okay they know i'm in the kitchen it's okay say hello to miss we're pretty informal here we are and we're wrapping up anyway on this edition of strictly business anything else you'd like to throw out there this week eric i thought this was a lot of good talk about kind of where things stand from the tv front this week no i think we covered it um you know i'm I'm glad to be home. I got more travel to do next week.

But hopefully at some point in time, I'm going to be able to sit down and work with you and line up some really interesting guests and dig into some topics that we typically don't dig into here. So hang in here with us. Like and subscribe, tell your friends, do whatever you need to do. We love doing this show. I want to keep doing it.

So help us out. I had a very interesting conversation with someone this past week, an executive with a pretty substantial television station who said he's a big, big, strictly business with Eric Bischoff fan. And I thought that was very, very cool. And if you want to join that fandom, well, as Eric said, subscribe 83weeks.com. But you can join our team as well. And that's by going to advertise witheric.com.

Get your product. Get your business out in front of thousands of listeners every single week. And you know Eric Bischoff, when he is pitching a product, he is all in on it. This man pitched a broom for Christ's sake. And now he's ready to pitch your product for everyone out there. Advertise with Eric.com. Maybe I'll just for shits and giggles have you pitch another broom on here at some point to demonstrate for our audience that you still got it. Eric Fishaw.

I know you do. All the best to you this week in your travels, my friend. This has been strictly business. And we'll see you guys all next week right here on 83 weeks.com and add free shows. Thank you.