World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) Company History
- 1926 – “Toots” Mondt starts “Slam Bang Western Style Wrestling”
- 1952 – Mondt partners with boxing promoter Jess McMahon to form Capital Wrestling Corp (CWC)
- 1953 – The CWC pledges to the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) which coordinated activities between regionally focused groups
- 1954 – Vince McMahon Sr takes over for his father Jess and builds the CWC into the dominant wrestling promotion in the North East
- 1963 – McMahon Sr and Mondt leave the NWA and form the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF)
- 1979 – WWWF renamed World Wrestling Federation WWF
- 1982 – Vince McMahon Jr. buys the company from his father, secretly planning on abandoning the traditional regional model and building a national wrestling power house. McMahon starts signing all of the biggest regionalstars and negotiates television deals, upending the traditional regional model.
- 1985 – McMahon catapults WWF onto the national stage with Wrestle mania, which incorporated mainstream entertainment with wrestling
- focus is “Sports Entertainment“ which incorporates stars from music, sports and film world
- 1993 – Monday Night Raw is launched as live programming
- 1999 – IPO 11.5M shares $17
- Mid 90’s – 2001 – WWE and WCW go head to head and destroy each other’s profits
- 2001 – World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:WWE) buys WCW and solidifies their position as the dominant wrestling brand
Main Drivers
Live Events / Television
- 240 – 260 domestic events, 70-80 international events per year
- ~1,800,000 people attended a live event in 2012
- Average Ticket Price $44
- 6.5 hours of original programming per week.
- RAW on USA Network (Replayed on mun2 and Universal HD)
- Smack Down on Syfy (Replayed on mun2)
- World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:WWE) Main Event on Ion
- Saturday Morning Slam on The CW
- 12,000,000 US viewers per week
Pay Per View
- 10-12 “mega events” per year
- $44.95 normal events
- $54.95 Wrestle mania
- More than 4,000,000 buys in FY`12
Other
- Merchandise Sales
- Video Games (Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ:TTWO) replaced THQ Inc. (OTCMKTS:THQIQ))
- Online Video ($1.5B YouTube Views)
Customer Behavior
- No chance to “go to the next game”
- Less supply = easier to pass on ticket price increase
- Difficult to say how much drops to the bottom line (flat fee vs % of door)
- World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:WWE) television has a highly attractive demographic making future increases in broadcast rights likely