83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff #35: Ask Eric Anything About The Business

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

In this week's edition of Strictly Business, Eric Bischoff answers YOUR questions about the BUSINESS of the wrestling business! Special thanks to this week's sponsor! Manscaped- Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code WRESTLEBIZ at Manscaped.com.. 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 presented to you by the podcast heat and at free shows network i of course am john alba joined as i am every single week by the man of the hour mr eric bischoff busy day for you my friend i hear yeah i just got done doing uh two and a half for three hours with Conrad for 83 weeks and took a 10 minute break and jumping in here. So happy to see a lot of the ad free show family members that were part of our live studio audience for 83 weeks jumping on over here.

And yeah, Coach Rosalie, Aloha, Muckerfeather. Hope you're enjoying Hawaii. I'm jealous of him. He's in Hawaii right now. We got Josh Fields. We got Joel in here. We got Matt in here. We got Andrew in here.

It is an ad free show's party over. on strictly business, but this will not be the only party that you and I get to experience over the next couple of weeks, Eric, because you and I are also headed out to MCW on Sunday, July 23rd for MCW fan jam. You go over to MCW25.com. You're going to see a bunch of different meet and greet options for Eric Bischoff. You can sign up for any combination of them or even just one of them and you will get access to our live stage show presentation of 83 weeks and strictly business. Eric, you and I got to do what out in Fresno a couple of months ago. What's your favorite part about hitting the road and getting in front of these crowds? Just engaging with a live audience.

You know, it's a rush whether I'm standing in the middle of the rain surrounded by 10,000 people or whether I'm at an event like this where it's a more intimate setting, but you're engaging and you're answering questions and you're interacting and the audience becomes just as important a part of the show as anything that you or I will have to say. So that's what I look forward to. MCW25.com is going to be where you're going to get your meat and greet tickets for at. The event itself is free. So you can just show up to it. It's just outside of Baltimore, Maryland over in Joppa, which I know that means Eric will be making a pit stop for some Jimmy's famous seafood. I got no doubt about that. True that. And then you come on over. You meet Eric. You meet

me we have a great time it's going to be so much fun cannot wait for that eric that again july 23rd a sunday morning and afternoon there's going to be a couple stage shows it's going to be you and i and then the incomparable rene piquette will be speaking with matt hearty and his wife rebbe so it should be a good time over there in joppa maryland we have a very good episode ahead on strictly business eric because we are doing our first ever ask eric about the business of the business here. No questions about what Eric thought about Glacier back in the 90s or anything like that. We are talking strictly business on this podcast here. So without further ado, are you ready, my friend? I'm ready. We got tons of questions to pick from. Let's get to this great

one from at TLD wrestling on Twitter. They ask, what strategies or business principles do you believe were key to the success of WCW during your tenure? And how can those principles be applied to other industries or businesses today um i went in and started breaking shit you know i i looked at everything that had been done in terms of the way television was produced the way characters were presented and i did everything as decidedly different as i could possibly think of don't be afraid of innovation don't be afraid of of of a breaking shit and don't be afraid of uh you know a couple misfires along the way because anytime you innovate and do things that are new, some things are going to work, some things won't, and go into any business with that

frame of mind, and chances are you'll probably find your niche or create one. Got a pretty good track record there. I think that's a great answer. We got one from Michael here. As how did sponsorships work with those companies that had in segment spots versus regular commercial ads? Did you negotiate those in segment spots or did Turner Broadcasting handle all those? Most of them, we negotiated because it was in programming and we controlled what went on in programming. The only one that really comes to mind off the top of my head that I had a direct involvement with was obviously Slim Jim with Randy Savage. And that was just a part of the overall contract, if you will, when it came time for Randy Savage to come over to WCW. But there were others like Pennzoil and things that we did.

And some of that may have come through Turner ad sales. but we were instrumental. Anytime it came into programming, we got to decide whether or not we wanted to do what the advertiser or perhaps Turner Ad Sales wanted to do. But if it wasn't something that we brought in directly, then it was something that came in through Turner Ad Sales and we worked closely with them for in-programming stuff.

I'm glad that you just said, if you wanted to do what the sponsor wanted to do, was there ever a time that you can recall that a sponsor asked you to do something that directly impacted the programming itself, like the content, I mean specifically? No, no, no, not the impact of the programming, but, you know, for example, if a sponsor wanted a ring apron, well, that ring apron had to aesthetically kind of fit what we were doing.

And it had to be an advertiser that kind of fit what our audience and our demo was. That's just fine-tuning. And there was never any instance that was incident or instance that was so, what's the best word for it contentious i guess where an advertiser wanted to do something and we just felt strongly about not doing that that never really happened it was small little things more than anything a francis has a really interesting question why is it hard for a company like wwe for example to have a museum is it the cost or getting people to visit there was a lot of chatter eric for many years about WWE getting a physical Hall of Fame in Orlando, and it never came to

fruition. And I think having a physical Hall of Fame building would probably add some equity to doing the Hall of Fame ceremony every year. Why do you think something like that's never happened? Oh, I probably will at some point. It's just a question of priorities, what makes the most sense when. I'm sure it will happen at some point in time. It's, like I said, it's just a matter of when. Where do you think would be a good area for that? New York City, Orlando, hypothetically. I think Orlando is a great area. I mean, New York City would be as well, but New York City is really, really, really expensive.

If you're going to be in a high-density kind of traffic area, I think Orlando works because it's a destination. Yeah. You know, so many people are traveling to Orlando, whether it's Disney, MGM Studios, Universal Studios, all the different attractions that exist in and around the Orlando area. I think having a WWC, or excuse me, WWE Museum and or Hall of Fame makes the most sense in Orlando. We got Coach Rosie live in the ad-free shows chat. Asking Eric, what is an untapped money source in the business of pro wrestling, in your opinion?

Oh, good, good question, coach. You know, I don't know that there's anything that's untapped. I think WWE has done a phenomenal job. monetizing all the different areas where money can, serious money can be made. I don't know if there's anything out there that's untapped. I'm sure that with the evolution and advancement of technology, you know, 15 years ago, nobody would have thought streaming would have been a revenue source either, and here we are. So I'm sure as technology evolves, so will opportunities that may not exist today.

But as of this current moment, I think WWE again has been a phenomenal, job when it comes to ancillary revenue streams like licensing and merchandising. When I say ancillary, I mean away from the large big ticket items like television rights and pay-per-view revenues or that type of thing. So, yeah, I don't think there's anything that's really untapped today. Ask me that same question a year from now. And what's interesting about it, too, Eric, is I tend to feel that WWE usually is pretty forward thinking when it comes to ideas for how can we get in on this.

If you recall, it was just a few years ago. They were one of the first major organizations to try the whole NFT craze. They had to customize well, John Cena, NFT, that they tried to push for WrestleMania one year. WWE was one of the first organizations to try that old social media platform tout, which didn't work out. But I remember them being very strong with that. And then, of course, I think the most obvious one is the WWE network with

over-the-top streaming concept, they were really forward-thinking on that. They pretty much beat everybody the punch on that. Yeah, and that's what I mean. You've got to try some of the things you're going to try that are innovative, that are new, some of them are going to work, and some of them aren't. But you have to try. You have to give it a shot because you don't know, particularly when things advance and grow as quickly as they do from, again, a technology perspective.

You know, Coach Rosie brings up, you know, another question that kind of fits into the same category, you know, do you think VR, virtual reality, will become a part of the business of pro wrestling? I think someday it will. And I was actually approached about, I don't know, a couple years ago by a gentleman who is actively producing things in VR, who is a huge wrestling fan, very successful guy in Los Angeles. And we wanted to look at what could be done in professional wrestling in VR. And the truth is, VR is still in its nascent stages. from a technological point of view, it's really, really, really expensive

to post-produce in VR. And I don't know that live VR is a thing yet. It will probably happen within the decade, but I don't think that we'll see VR being a viable part of the wrestling industry anytime between now and the next eight years. And that's not to say that live VR won't take for all we know that could be the next big thing in the sports and entertainment spectrum. Imagine a camera is set up ringside where you put on your VR glasses and all of a sudden

you're watching SummerSlam like it's right up there in front of you. Who's to say that something like that can't happen in the not so distant future? But time will tell. As they say, we got Amy Vaughn in here, your girl, Amy. This is one of my favorite shows. It's one of my favorite shows too, Amy. You got good taste. you mentioned licensing we got bobby so what is the process for developing a licensing and

merchandising business model are they more effective as separate departments or as one separate because they're really two different businesses merchandising and when i say merchandising i'm talking about the chotchkes in the t-shirts and all the paraphernalia that you can buy for example on online at wwee shop zone uh that's merchandise is our items that are contracted for and manufacturers specifically for

WWE for the direct distribution to their audience, whether it be at live arenas or online in the shop. Licensing is a third party arrangement where you've got somebody that's got a widget and they want to put

a wrestling character on that widget and they pay you a fee for that. They're really two separate business. We often refer to them in the same sentence as, you know, L&M or licensing and merchandising, same category, but they're really two different businesses. So I think they should be separate. Let's keep it up with the licensing conversation. Good question here from Deuce Pritchard, not Bruce, Deuce. It says in today's internet age, do you think it's more profitable to bring in and license established talent under their own name or gimmicks, or do you try and make them entirely new characters and own the IP?

For example, do you believe today's audience would accept Cactus Jack debuting as mankind? Yes, I think they would. In that particular instance, every instance is different. There's not probably a one-size-fits-all answer. I think in some cases, yes, they would. the audience would accept a cactus jacket as mankind. But again, it depends on the talent. Well, what do you think of that general concept?

Because that's something we've seen from WWE in recent years where they've gone a little more lenient, perhaps. Like when Samoa Joe came into WWE, they didn't try to rebrand him as their own IP. He was just... That's because he had the rights to it. That's because no one else had those rights. If somebody else previously owned those rights,

if there was a trademark, because Samoa Joe worked for T&A and Samoa Joe had the trademark for Samojo, then they would not have introduced him as Samo Joe because they couldn't own that intellectual property. But I guess what I'm saying is they could have perpetually owned their own character had they rebranded him and had that IP forever under their own jurisdiction in theory, but they chose not to. He's just one example I'm using here. How do you know that?

How do you know that? But WWE doesn't currently own those rights. Well, I guess because he's an AEW wrestling under Samoa Joe. Right. But that's a unique one because it's very unusual for WWE to not own. That's my point. Yeah, it's a very, very unusual situation. And there's been a few of them.

Austin Theory is someone who came in. He's still using his name that he's been using. And then you'll get Prince DeVic come in and they make him Finn Baller. So I'm curious if it has to do with equity and where they see some. someone on the pecking order. I'm genuinely curious as to whether or not that play. Again, I think the answer is probably the same that I gave you earlier. It depends on the talent. How much equity? Where have they been? Where has that brand been associated with? And again, I would suggest, I don't know this for a fact, that with regards to Samoa Joe and

WWE, while Samoa Joe was in WWE, WWE probably had the exclusive license to that character. Once they parted company, Samoa Joe was able to take that mark with. him that would have been a process of the original negotiation really matt ryan wants to know business wise name one thing that you learned from each of the following verne ganya ted turner harvey schiller and vince mcmann so one thing business wise you learned from each of those four all right let's take him one at a time give me the first one first burn verne i think i learned more than anything is the value of making it believable and feeling that it's real. And that, to me, happened when I was learning how to do play-by-play.

And all of my influence was from Vern, Mike Shields, no longer with us, but Mike Shields, Greg, to a certain degree, Greg Gagne. Larry's Obisco a lot. I learned a lot from Larry. he was very, very helpful in teaching me, mentoring me, if you will, how to do play-by-play, how to get the talent over, when to lay in, when to lay out, and Vern taught me how to bring that energy, and Vern certainly didn't describe it as this, and I certainly wouldn't have understood it if he did, but Vern's approach to doing play-by-play was much like that of a,

of a, oh, a method actor, you know, you have to really believe yourself that what you're doing and what you're seeing and what you're calling is absolutely real and important. That sounds easy, doesn't it? Yeah. But the difference between what you think in your head and you're trying to convince yourself is real and important in what comes out of your mouth and into the ears of the audience is sometimes different. but that's what I learned from burn who's next Ted Turner Ted Turner don't don't write for

yourself Ted's words were you know not to me directly but with regarding to programming in general don't program and network for your own tastes and I think I interpreted that and embraced it and extended to the WCW in the way we approach creative because there were certain types styles, presentations of wrestling that I as a wrestling fan long before I got into the wrestling business, I really enjoy. But one of the things that I learned is you can't write and produce a show to entertain an audience of one. You have to entertain an audience of millions that you hope will continue to grow. And you can't do that by satisfying your own personal tastes. Harvey Schiller. I didn't learn much from Harvey. And, and that,

That's only because really, I didn't really work that closely with Harvey. Harvey was very, you know, hands off. And you've heard the term macro manager, somebody that kind of watches from above and puts the right people in a right spot and doesn't interfere too much. That was Harvey Schiller. So I had very, very little meaningful business interaction with Harvey, other than reporting to him and being responsible to him. And don't anybody take that as I didn't have a good relationship.

I did, had a great relationship with Harvey. Harvey was very direct, very honest. He didn't suffer bullshit, put up with it. I really like that about Harvey, but I didn't really have an opportunity to learn much from him, which is unfortunate because Harvey was a great leader. He's an amazing leader, but he had a great imagination. And it was also an entrepreneur,

but I didn't get benefit from working with him in that regard. And then lastly, Vince McMahon. Wow, that's a tougher one because my learning experience with Vern extended way beyond this short amount of time that I actually worked for him or with him. I think leadership would be another one. I think people could say whatever they want to say about Vince McMahon, but his leadership, his ability to, inspire others to work within the parameters and within the vision that Vince had established is something that's incredibly impressive to me. And I learned to value. I think that's amazing that you were able to learn from so many different people and interact with them over the course of your career. And I think you can see influence from all those different arenas.

I loved what you said about Vrunganya and the immersiveness, the method acting with telling those stories. I think that's very cool. We got one from Russ. Cool question here. Do you ever see there being a weekly or daily wrestling television show covering wrestling sort of like how busted open does, but more like how ESPN does SportsCenter? You know, I actually, Jason Harvey and I actually worked on a concept like that. many, many, many years ago.

You know, it's obviously worked for ESPN, right? And it could work only if, and this is the thing that, this is the hurdle that we faced that I wasn't willing to try to overcome because it would have been an expensive effort to try to overcome it. But if you were able to get footage, right? Because just seeing people talk about wrestling can be interesting for a, while, but only a short while. You have to, you also have to have to have video action to support the conversation. And because WWE, at the time that Jason and I, by the way, Amy Vaughan

wants to know who is Jason Hervey. Jason Hervey was a child actor who had done a bunch of movies. It was a star of a show called The Wonder Years. It was a massive hit on ABC back in the 90s is actually in the Smithsonian Hall of Fame at this point in time because if it's impact on television culture and audience. Jason decided to hang up his acting gloves and put on his producing gloves and we ended up producing a lot of wrestling kind of there as well as becoming independent company producing a ton of television shows for other networks. That's who Jason is. But at the time we wanted to do it and Jason Hervey's brother, who was an intellectual property attorney still is a very, very successful on Scott Hervey. Hey, Scott, you're out there.

We were going to actually pursue it, but we knew it would have, we would have had a legal battle on our hands. We believed, Scott Hervey believed strongly, that we had a fair use argument that would have allowed us to pull satellite feeds and have that footage, even if WWE didn't want us to have it. We believe that fair use would have covered us, but it would cost us a substantial amount of money to find out if we were right. And we just weren't willing to risk it. So the answer is, yes, it could work if there was video footage to support it. And it wasn't just WWE footage or just AEW footage. You had to be able to kind of cover everything in order for that show to have credibility. I'm curious what you know.

know if you had any interactions on this front when you came into WWE in 2019 and they were starting that relationship with Fox Sports. Do you ever remember there being any conversations about Fox Sports expanding its television coverage of WWE beyond just airing Smackdown and having so I'll provide this and I'm not sure if this is something that's ever really been put out there. in the public, but Fox Sports was looking at developing sort of a WWE newsroom in a way, where they were in the process of exploring additional programming that would have covered WWE beyond just airing Smackdown. Now, if you recall, they had the WWE backstage show

for a period of time that was like a roundtable kind of show but there was at one point going to be a documentaries division there was going to be from context clues that i gathered there was going to be an attempt at doing some sort of a sports center style show and i know that eric because they actually reached out to my agent about it at the time and they were doing a expansion on the division and before Smackdown even launched on Fox, they can the entire division and they decided not to move forward with it. And it's an interesting what if to see pro wrestling legitimized in that light on a network like that. I don't think it would have been legitimized because it would have been viewed consciously or subconsciously as a promotional platform. If all you're talking

about it, it's why I said you have to be able to cover other things in the wrestling business. otherwise the audience is going to perceive it as just another WWE promotional platform and I don't think it would have done well. You should be grateful you didn't get that. I felt the same exact way that you did and I don't think there would have been longevity and we saw that with the WW backstage show. There just wasn't any longevity with it and then ended up getting canceled. Another one for Matt.

Did Jimmy Hart have two contracts in WCW, one for his music contributions and one for his on-air talent persona or his contract combined? both roles. I believe his contract covered both areas. Now, he, we may have, there wouldn't have been an additional revenue opportunity for Jimmy if he would have been involved in the publishing of music. He would have had some piece of the publishing rights to WCW music, not all of it, but some of it. So that would have been incremental, but that would have been within the agreement that he had, I believe. Adam asked, could Eric see a time where

WWE moves all their weekly content online? Maybe, depending on how the world evolves. You know, keep in mind, you're saying you would need to replace, I don't know, a billion dollars a year worth of guaranteed revenue from their television licensing. So is there a scenario?

where they could perhaps replace that billion dollars a year with a billion $5 a year or billion $500,000 or $500 million a year by doing something online. I don't know. Maybe in the future it's hard to tell. Doubted it.

Josh Fields for ad-free shows. What is the most ridiculous merchandise pitch you've ever had presented to you? Condoms. wrestler-specific condoms or WWE? W-TW-W-Branding condoms. Okay. Interesting.

So it's not like Goldberg condoms dropping the jackhammer or anything. I mean, it might have been, there might have been, it didn't go far. Let's, right. I mean, it may have, it may have ended up that way had we engaged in that conversation, but I did not engage in that conversation. And it's not because, look, you know, condoms are condoms. And it's a, it's a consumer product. It's a credible, valuable, you know, product that's out there in a marketplace.

So nothing against condoms. But you have to think about what is the advertiser that's coming up right after the condom commercial think about having their product being associated with wrestling, number one? And oh, yeah, we're pitching rubbers too. You got to think about that. You got to think about the universe of advertisers that you're creating for your show and make sure that they all feel comfortable. Well, I know one way, Eric, that you'll be feeling comfortable this summer. And that, of course, is with our friends over at Manscape, too. There are plenty fine if you're using wrestling condoms because they know that no matter what,

you're going to be looking great down there this summer. I'm talking about this summer. It's not about the size of those cannonballs. It's just about making a splash with our friends over at Manscape. Prep for barbecue season by making sure that your grill master has the hottest dogs the summer has ever seen. When you're at the hookout, let the meat speak for itself with Manscape's performance package 4.0. It's time to get ready, not sweaty, by going to Manscape.com and using code wrestle biz. That's W-R-E-S-T-L-E-B-I-Z for 20% off plus free shipping.

How's your head feeling up there on top, Eric, the shave? I know the hair's starting to grow back a little bit. No, starting to go back a little bit. I'm conflicted at this point. I'm not sure if I'm going to maintain the boldish standard that I have right now or let it grow out. I'm really, you know, I'm really torn. Initially, my wife couldn't wait for my hair to grow back when I told her I was going to do this. But now she's got to look at me.

I'm getting a little bit of a cool side eye every now and in. Much like Coach Rosie, who evidently is, he used Manscape before he came over to Hawaii. And according to Coach Rosie, who is in the strictly business studio audience, Let me tell you, I'm quoting here, quote. Let me tell you I'm turning heads, unquote. I want to know, Coach Rosie, how have you not been arrested yet if you're strolling up and down the beach swinging those fucking well-manicured balls? It doesn't make sense to me.

I'll have to hear the deeds on that when you get back. Well, you can maintain your baldness head to toe with the Manscape Performance Package 4.0. It's got everything you need to guarantee you have the most mouth-watering treats at the party this summer. We built the ultimate bundle for your summer grooming their lawnmower 4.0 trimmer features a cutting-ed ceramic blade to reduce grooming accents thanks to their advanced skin-safe technology. The lawnmower 4.0 has a 7,000 RPM motor, a new multifunction on-off switch that can engage a travel lock and gives you the ability to turn the 4,000K LED spotlight on and off when needed for a more precise shave. And yeah, it's waterproof too. So once you hit the showers after the pool, you can make sure that you're taking care of yourself in style this summer.

And we want to help you out here over at Strictly Business. Get 20% off and free shipping with the code wrestle biz. W-R-E-S-T-L-E-B-I-Z and Manscape.com. That's 20% off with free shipping and manscape.com. And use code wrestle biz. Manscaped, the perfect way to get your patty sizzling. this oh so very hot summer. Hey, do you remember the WCW mascot named Wildcat Willie?

Yes. Josh Fields, I believe, sent something here. We've had a bunch of comments here and I lost it. But I think it was Josh Fields that said, don't be silly, wrap your Willie. Yes. He should have got a really cool Wildcat Willie condom. That would have been awesome. Hey, guys, Tony, Shivani.

You need to call the time out real quick. Wanted to tell your listeners what I've been telling me what happened when listeners, for a while now about all the cool things happening over on ad-freeshows.com. On a new edition of The Insiders, Conrad sits down with former Turner Finance Executive Dirty Dick Cheetah, talking about the internal war between WCW and Turner and the Monday Night War with the WWF. And my assistant said, hey, you're not going to believe his down there. I said, China is down there and it's when he talked.

And I went over to her window because, hey, the whole, All the Degs is down there. Get the camera. So we went down there. And, of course, ever, DX was back what was down there in the fight with security. On a bonus episode of My World, Double J watches back his tag team championship match against FTR and breaks down the hilarious Briscoe Farms kit that preceded it. And they say, can y'all be in the background talking?

And the four of us are down there, really just all four of us. But lethal and sign jazz, we got to start being silly. I just started to drumming the guitar. And Sott started bouncing that baby and Sajan started doing the dose of dough. I think this is, I don't know, this is the defundies, but I still think it's a, it's a complete ad lib, but it played to, you know, the line he said, them clowns, and we're down there dancing. Perfect. Perfect. That's just a small taste of what we've got waiting for you with four levels to choose from.

See for yourself. My ad free shows is the best value in wrestling today. sign up now at at free shows.com you continue here on strictly business Eric we got top gal Lindsay Cupcake Girl said recently we saw Bud Light advertised during a WWE premium live event given that the audience is geared more towards younger audiences

in WWE as opposed to other companies you think this is the right move or do you see it as a positive given the size of that company? I think it's Desperation on the part of Bud Light, and I think Bud Light is desperate. This is probably one of the first times that I can recall that a beer sponsor embraced the professional wrestling audience. Truth is, I think, could be wrong.

Correct me if I am, anybody. But the vast majority of the composition of the WWE audience is probably still 25 to 54, which is a key demo for beer. but typically beer has shied away from professional wrestling because although the core audience is still 25 to 54 there is enough of a teen and preteen audience to give beer companies alcohol companies a sense of caution and they generally would stay away from professional wrestling I think in the case of Bud Light they're pretty desperate and they're probably trying to re-engage that'd be my guess i don't know isn't it interesting though when we're talking the height of the

monday night wars where stone cold steve austinist slinging beer every single week we're fresh off the sandman and ecw slinging beer every single week that there wasn't ever a tie-in of sorts with a beer company i feel like someone would have no no the very reason i just told you you can't you can't even at that time though especially at that time Especially at the time. If it was going to happen, it would happen now because I think because of what's happened to the advertising industry with regard to television, linear television in particular, because of the pressure that's streaming in other forms, whether it's YouTube or anything else, of other forms of audience engagement, the impact that's had on linear television and the advertising industry in general. And look, beer companies are, you know, they're going to spend whatever they're going to spend to market. their product, whatever their budget is for that year. And typically in years past, 10, 15, 20 years ago, if there was a television component to that ad spend, then they would spend that

component. And they've always spent a lot of money. And they would spend some in print, and they would spend some in sponsorship. But all of that was at a time when the advertising world wasn't as fractured as it is now. Now it's become so fractured that in order to get attention, you have to venture into other platforms or with other brands that you might not otherwise when there wasn't as much pressure on you as there is now. I'm an advertising point of view. You're kind of in a position where you've got to take whatever you can get now because you're fighting for every eyeball there is because it is such a fractured audience.

So I think brands are more willing now to take risks that they would not have taken previously when they weren't under pressure for eyeballs. Let's keep with the theme of advertisers. Brian asks, when advertisers would have their logo on ringposts or on the mat, is that something that the advertiser can request where the logos go? Or is that something that you would choose where they go? Also, we would choose, but we would communicate and try to work as cooperatively as we could with the brand, obviously. Also says, are those part of the advertising fee or is that something separate you have to pay for? Now, when you do a sponsorship that includes in-programming content, that's a separate deal.

It's a different kind of deal. Ad-time is ad-time. There's a rate card, and sometimes you can negotiate for less than rate card. But when it comes to in-programming, that's a completely different valuation and opportunity, because you're not just, you know, you're not an advertisement in there with six other advertisements during a two-minute commercial or whatever. you're you're out there for 12 or 18 minutes in front of the audience that's an entirely different deal good one from trav here i think you'll like says eric what three books would

you recommend for anyone who's either running a business or is entrepreneurial in any way have you got any specific go-to books that no i really don't know i really don't there's a million good ones out there conrad thompson i'm sure we'd be able to to give you a great answer for that but I couldn't do it more than fair let's see francis asked how important was it for wcw internationally in the UK market and how did you find the TV deals between them and when you were in TNA say that again you broke up a little bit sure he says how important was it for wcW internationally in the UK market and how did you find the TV deal composition between then and when you were in TNA I wasn't involved in any of the TNA international deals

so I couldn't tell you. I have no reference point to discuss. For WCW, it was a big deal because there was not every market internationally was a big, from a revenue perspective, television market. The UK certainly was. Germany was for a while. France, there was a lot of money.

TF1 in France had a big, big budget and an appetite for professional wrestling. So there were key markets in Europe from a revenue point of view that were very important and very lucrative. But it wasn't just, just the international television rights deal that was important. It was also the ability to have a footprint for your product so that you could do live

tours, even if you weren't really making any money on the licensing side, because some markets really didn't have the kind of money that would have been all that attractive. But if they're in a market and you're in a good time slot and you're reaching a certain amount of the audience, you can make that market a part of your tour for an international tour. So it was important in that regard sometimes, more so than the face value of the licensing agreement itself. Amy's got a good follow-up to our question before about advertisers. What about matches sponsored by an item? Like when we saw Mountain Dew sponsoring the Bray Wyatt and an L.A. night match, do you think that's an effective use about dollars?

Can be. And again, that depends on the talent. It depends on how popular the talent is. But certainly if you've got something that's hot and you've got an advertiser that's willing to or under understands that and sees that and understands the value of that, more importantly, that's a great opportunity. And I think we'll see more of that in the future in general. I think we'll see a lot more of it sooner in WWE just because of the relationship with, they've got a sophisticated and mature ad sales strategy over USA and Fox or wherever they end up. But internally also, they know what

they're doing when it comes to commercial sponsorships and partnerships, and I think you're going to see a lot more of that. I would agree with that. Basically because of Endeavor. I think Endeavor, I think Nick Khan has been a big driving force behind that in particular after that Mountain Dew pitch black match at the Royal Rumble. They had the press conference and the bottles of Moundu pitch black were lined up along the dais sir. And Cody after he won the Rumble is like, well, I got to try it now, I guess. And he takes out the bottle, unscrews the cap, takes a sip, does a Well, it's delicious. Thumbs up right in the camera.

He knew what he was doing. That's a dude who's on that. And an advertiser would love that. Exactly. Make him happy. Mark Cyrus, what is one product or service that hasn't partnered with wrestling that you feel would do well if they were to get into the business? Well, we were just talking about beer.

That's a natural. It's a natural. I worked hard to try to get a beer sponsor and never really could for all the reasons that I explained to you. But I think once that barrier is broken, to maybe Bud Light broke it, you know, maybe now that somebody else has dipped their toe in the water and there hasn't been any controversy as a result of it, it'll open the door up. I imagine it will at some point. I think beer is number one. You know, I can't really think of any lifestyle brands that are particularly suited for WWE or AEW for that matter. You don't know. I have to think about that a little bit more. Did you remember any specific beer brand that you read? out to? Coors, I reached out to. We tried to do something with Miller at one point.

Those are the two that I remember because I was somewhat involved in it. Gotcha. Gotcha. I'll ask this one because I was curious what your thoughts would be when I saw the report. Sean Ross Sapp from Fightful reported just yesterday as we record this, that Warner Brothers Discovery is putting a lot of pressure on AEW for the next broadcast rights deal to potentially expand their pay-per-view programming. potentially even to one a month? What are your thoughts on the idea of AEW, Eric, potentially becoming a one pay-per-view-a-month business?

My first thought is why. Why would Warner Discovery put pressure, which I think is probably those are my words for the record, not Charles? Those are my words, not Charles. Okay, so it's not pressure. But pressure, suggest something different. Why would Warner Discovery encourage? Encourage, there you go. AEW to produce more pay-per-views? My guess is because Warner Discovery owns a piece

and they see the revenue and they want to share in it. I'm guessing they do right now. You don't hear a lot of that chatter. That's cool. But I'm guessing that Discovery Warner, discovery, whatever it is, probably owns a piece of AEW. That's part of their overall deal. And as such, sees revenue potential there that is readily available, and they want at it.

I'm more convinced now, just based on that question, and I believe Sean Ross Saps reporting on us to be accurate, because he's generally very accurate. I think what you want to think about the way he presents his information. and I dig it. I like Sean Ross app a lot. I find him to be fun to talk to. I do follow them. I read him. But I do believe he's got a fair amount of credibility, a lot of credibility. And if that's the case, then I'm more convinced than ever that Discovery Warner Warner Discovery owns a piece of AEW as we speak and are looking for a revenue upside. The only thing that makes sense, otherwise, why would they care? Here's the exact quote. Warner Brothers Discovery sources confirmed if I feel select that one of the

major proposals from their end to all elite wrestling as it relates to an extension is the subject of pay-per-view events. Specifically, a WBD source told Fifeful that they mentioned the very likely possibility of significantly expanding the AW pay-per-view schedule even to one a month. We're told that this is something that Warner Brothers Discovery has wanted. We aren't sure on if those would be standalone or included in a max streaming deal. If Warner Brothers Discovery sources would not elaborate on that. Yeah, I'm absolutely convinced because otherwise it wouldn't make any difference. Why would they care? If they're not getting a piece of the action, all they care about is television ratings. Since they're looking for content other than television, their weekly

television, that's highly, highly profitable with great margins. There's no other reason why they'd be interested unless they're getting a taste well my thought process on that eric is that that could be their way of incorporating the live programming element on max where you're i don't agree man you keep going back to max and going back to man i don't think so if they wanted content for max they'd create content for max but pay-per-view specifically is different than creating content i get that i understand that but also I don't see a world. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm being naive here. I don't see a world where AEW is potentially running monthly pay-per-views at $50 a piece when the market is not dictating that.

And you see. I'm not saying it's a smart idea. You didn't ask me if it's a good idea or not. But if, you know, I'm reacting to the fact that Warner wants this, it is highly profitable with great margins. The only reason they would want that is if there's revenue for them at the end of the day. Now, if you're suggesting that by having these, you know, premium live events, because that's what they would be then on, on max, that that's the revenue generator. That's a good argument. I could, you'd have to entertain that argument in a fair conversation. But I, I, I just, I don't think it's that. I think it's one of a piece of the action. We own a part of the company and they want, they want to see the revenues increase. We don't hear a lot of, we know, we hear the date numbers and the, the pay-per-view revenue numbers, but we don't hear profitability or lack of profitability. We don't hear anything about that. It's not public. It's a probably held company.

We're not, you don't have any rights to know that as an audience or fans. But my guess is they're looking for profitability, and they see just like I looked at profitability when WCW was completely underwater financially when I took it over, and I knew that there was only one area that we could in the short term increase revenues, and that was by increasing pay-per-views, because that was the only real revenue stream that we had, that we had control over. So we just started, you know, we started out with three a year or four a year when I got there. I bumped it up to six, and I bumped it up to eight, then I bumped it up to ten, then I bumped it up to 12, and WWE followed suit, because from a financial perspective, that made the most sense.

and it makes the most sense to me in the scenario that Sean Rossap laid out that Turner already owns today a piece of AEW and is looking to shore up revenues. So then with that said, Mark asks, if Warner does own a piece of AW, do you feel that crossover promotions between AW and other Warner properties would be beneficial for both AEW and Warner? If so, how would you do it? I don't know. I don't know enough about the, I mean,

In general, I would say, yes, it's always good to have an opportunity for cross-promotion and crossover type of deals. But it would be hard for me to speculate on what that might be or how to do it because everyone is different. It depends on the brand that you're partnering with or cross-promoting with. I got a couple more in here, Eric. This one was asked to me directly and I wanted to ask you about it. Rick wanted to know why are WWE writers non-union? Because right now

WWE programming is completely unaffected by the writer's strike as we've seen. And that looks like that's going to be a really messy situation in the next few months as of just 24 hours ago where it was essentially reported that there's going to be a long-term holdout here on the studio side

to try to pressure writers. And I will say pressure there. So why is it that W.W. Writers who are producing 52 weeks of television every year, are they non-union? Because WWE can have non-union writers. Writers don't have to be in the union. There's no constitutional provision that says that anybody that writes entertainment has to be a part of union. I know the union would love that to be mandated by the Constitution, because then they could make more money and have more control. But there's no provision that requires writers

to whatever Senate exists today people still have a little bit of freedom you can choose to be a part of a union gig or if you're not you don't want to be in the union for any reason you don't have to be now what makes it difficult is if you're writing for any major studio

or television network you're going to have to be a union because they're members of that union but for example when I was producing reality television with Jason Hervey, during the Writers' strike, we didn't have any problems. We never had, we, it wasn't wrestling. We had a lot of writers on our show, producers, directors who were not part of the DGA,

Directors Guild of America, or WGA Writers Guild of America. And that gave us kind of an advantage at the time during the strike, right? So there's no law, there's no constitutional provision that mandates that writers be a part of the union. and WWE has never been part of the union. Starting to think that we're going to see a lot of reality programming this fall. You know, you might. I don't think you're going to see as much as you did in the previous writer's strike when reality just was everywhere.

Because we've seen so many, you know, reality shows when they first broke, everything worked. You can have a stupid car crash, human car crash, ridiculousness. But people have seen it. They've seen too much of it. They've grown tired of it. There's no appetite for it anymore. If you look at a lot of the really successful unscripted content right now,

and again, I'm no expert. I don't watch enough television to even know if what I'm saying is true. Okay. But most of the unscripted things I see are doc follows, as they refer to in the industry, meaning you're watching someone going through a process. or a challenge, but it's filmed in more of a documentary style as opposed to the cheesy, goofy Kardashian types, which, by the way, I wish I had a fraction of a fraction of their financial success. But as a television product, it's just phony, stagey, not real. It's just it is what it

is. And a lot of shows were like that. And I produced some of them, quite frankly, that were like that, where you're staging situations. Yes, you're getting people's real, reactions. No, there's no real script, but you've got a pretty good outline. Nothing that you're doing is really real. It's all pretty much stage or contrived at the very least. You're just not going to see a lot of that. Maybe you'll see more doc follows like you would see on Discovery, for example, as opposed to what was this show that was so hot for a while, in a 12, 13, 14, the beach Jersey Shore

Jersey Shore and I'm going to see that kind of shit people are so tired of that but you may see more of the doc follow type of stuff or process you know

an example of a process show would be you know the the pawn shop shows that's a process Johnny Eble walks in he's got a picture of somebody that looks like

an authentic painting by a famous painter and we watch in our homes as you go through the process of learning about what it is you're trying to pawn or sell or whatever we get the valuation we learn about we learn more about the the painter or the artist that's called the that's a process reality that's pretty low cost programming that's low cost it's not cheesy it's informational I watch a lot of that stuff because I find myself you know learning something that I didn't really know I was interested

in, but I become fascinated in because I learn the process and I get an education in the meantime. I think you'll see a lot more of that, but I don't think you're going to see much more of the cheesy, Jersey, short, stupid shit. Two more and then we'll wrap up here on Strictly Business. We got

Andrew from AFS. With WWE being so dominant in wrestling, how difficult does it make it for companies like AEW Impact to broaden their merchandise, like WWE having an exclusive wrestling deal with Funko, for example? Well, it makes it more difficult, but Funko's competition. And if Funko doesn't have competition,

Funko will have competition. And the key is to make your brand so popular in the case of AEW, or excuse me, WWE, they're kind of already there. In AEW's case, it's, you know, they've got to get more popular. You know, they've got a strong foothold in a very core part of the audience, general wrestling audience. But it's very stable. And it's only at about 850,000 viewers at peak on average collision is coming in at five rampage is coming in around 350 you take those three shows combined and they still don't add up to monday night raw generally so until a w becomes more mainstream and more top of mind in the broader market AEW will be challenged

they're going to get some there'll be some you know brands that will take a flyer on AEW, particularly because of their time slot and position on a great network, two great networks. So they'll get some, but it's an uphill battle until you get to a certain threshold of popularity where your brands feel much more comfortable with you. And then I'll piggyback off that for our final question here. Thank you to everyone, by the way, for all the great questions here today. They've been awesome. Franklin, as with a new TV show, video game, purchasing Ring of Honor, and the big show at Wembley,

do you think AEW grew too fast or is doing too much being just four years old? I do understand if someone's offering TV time and places to hold events, you take it. No, I don't think they've grown to, grown too quickly. I mean, look, somebody's providing you. How could the Wembley show have any negative impact? We can't, right? I mean, that's a big opportunity. It's a massively successful opportunity in terms of branding AEW and making it credible and viable.

So whatever they had to do to get there was worth it, right? The squeeze was definitely worth the juice or the juice was worth their squeeze or however you want to talk about it. Now, in terms of producing more television, look, if the network wants it, your job is in any business you're in, you're servicing a client. It doesn't matter. You've got to keep your client happy. And in this case, AEW is servicing Warner Discovery. And if Warner Discovery, want something, your job, if you're a good producer, is to deliver it and deliver it well enough that they want more of it or willing to pay for more of it

or pay more for the stuff they already have. So you can't be critical of that. And it's not criticism. It's more of just an awareness and a little bit of experience. is until you have your process, your creative strategies, your creative process, and you've got a great handle on your talent, until you mature in those areas, and AEW is far from that yet,

although I'm seeing indications that suggest to me that perhaps are getting more mature, and they're starting to figure things out from a television production, storytelling point. More on a television production than storytelling. But they'll come a time when they'll get, there. The risk when there's all of that pressure on you to produce that content to service your client as you're putting a tremendous amount of pressure on the infrastructure that provides

creative and process. That's the downside. But I don't think it's not an either or. It has to be both when your network says, hey, I want more and here's some money. That just puts the pressure on the process and on the creative to ramp it up better and faster. we want to keep ramping up strictly business better and faster every single week and we want you to be part of that you head on over to advertise with eric dot com get your product get your business out in front of thousands of listeners every single week here advertise with eric dot com and of course subscribe to us at eighty three weeks dot com ad free shows dot com and wherever you get your podcasts and we of course want to see you out on july MCW25.com for MCW's fan jam. You go to that website, you check out all the different Eric Bischoff, meet and greet packages, you purchase even just one of them. You're going to be able to get access to our live stage show,

a live presentation of 83 weeks and Strictly Business. Eric Bischoff, I know it's been a busy day for you. Anything else you'd like to throw out there on this edition of Strictly Business? No, other than I want to promote the fact that on July 26. I'm going to be at Lineside Brewing for Best Trivia Ever. You can go to Best Trivia ever.com and get your tickets. That's going to be in East Greenwich, Rhode Island. We're going to open up the doors.

We'll do a meet, greet seven, and we'll do our trivia show at 7.30. It's weird that I'm pitching a trivia show, but the guys at Best Triviaever.com, they do these all over the United States. This isn't just a little local thing that happens in East Greenwich, right? But they do, I think, Ken told me, like 300 of these a year in different bars and establishments around the country. So it's a big damn deal. And it's a really interesting business model. And this is my second one and looking forward to it.

So if you're listening in here anywhere in the area, go to Best Trivia ever.com. Get your tickets up looking for me. Go meet Eric there and make sure you tune into Strictly Business next week. He's Eric Bischoff. I'm John Alba. We'll see you next time. Thank you.