WWF Wrestling Essays - WWE, World Championship Wrestling

WWF Wrestling The company that I researched for this paper is the World Wrestling Federation Entertainment. The company was organized and founded in the early 1940's by Vincent McMahon Sr. The current owner and CEO is McMachon's son, Vincent Kennedy McMahon Jr. The World Wrestling Federation (WWF) is headquarters in the Titan Tower, in Stamford Connecticut. The WWF specializes in the area of Pro Wrestling, which are "scripted fights" in which highly trained athletes simulate a fighting experience. The "sport" of Pro Wrestling has been around since the middle of the 19th century. In early times the "fighting" was real (in fact Abe Lincoln was an early wrestling champion) but the fighting turned"fake" in the early 1990's. The performers in Pro Wrestling are regarded as independent contractors who sign with an individual company to perform exclusively with that company. There are currently no unions, benefits, or retirement plans for any of the wrestling performers, a controversial topic in the industry. This practice may change in the future. Today, Pro Wrestling is a billion dollar business with its "performers" recognized throughout the civilized world. The are a wide variety of products and services offered by the WWF. The main service offered by the company is entertainment by way of television programming. The WWF produces a number of television shows throughout the United States and abroad, and have had a tremendous amount of success. Many of their recent successes have been: - announced approximately a 230% increase for television advertising gross sales for calendar fourth quarter at $33 million compared to $10 million in calendar fourth quarter 1998 (wwf.com) -The success of their flag ship program, RAW IS WAR, on the USA Cable Network. Which is currently averaging around a 7.0 market share on Monday nights. It is the number #1 show with the male 16-34 year old audience. (1wrestling.com) -The WWF recently introduced the newest show, SMACKDOWN, on the UPN Network, on Thursday nights. The show is a run away success for the station and WWF averaging a Neilson rating in the middle fours. -The WWF also produces two other successful shows in Sunday Night HEAT, and WWF SUPERSTARS. And the company has shows in national syndication with WWF Jakked and WWF Livewire. The WWF specializes in Pay Per View broadcasting. The WWF has these "specials" once a month and have run these specials since 1985, being the largest revenue earner in Pay 2 Per View history (Mike Tyson is second on the list). For example the past WWF Pay Per View, "Royal Rumble 2000," drew a 1.58 buy rate, which would translate into about 600,000 buys. The special aired for $29.99 by most cable and satellite dish providers. The WWF also does extremely well selling tickets for these live events to be aired on television. They have a streak of roughly around three years with straight sellouts for their "live feed" broadcast (with include Raw Is War's, Smackdown's, and the Pay Per Views). The WWF also put their stamp on other projects. They have a large hand in merchandising souvenirs for their fans. Items such as shirts, hats, posters, keychains, beer holders, etc... can be purchased at live shows, a local shopping mall, or at WWF.com. Recently the WWF has expanded its company. This past fall, the WWF released several million IPO's and gained over 1.5 billion dollars in capital from the stock. With this increase in capital the WWF (for its second year) purchased air time during the Superbowl. In 1999 the WWF was 3rd on the USA Today "Best New Company Commercial" list. Also, this past month the WWF has announced plans to create a new football league, titled the XFL. The league has announced six of eight cities that will participate this January. The WWF also dabbled in the realm of literature this past year. WWF superstar "Mankind" a.k.a. Mick Foley and his book, "Have a Nice Day" spent 5 weeks at number one a top the New York Times Best Sellers List. And WWF superstar "The Rock," a.k.a. Dwayne Johnson spent seven weeks in the N.Y. Times Best Sellers Top Five.Overall this is a company with a wide variety of successful products and services. THE FUTURE OF WRESTLING The future of this industry is very strong as the WWF has destroyed its Compitition for the past three years, as I'll talk more about. With the substantial increase in capital from the IPO, the WWF has vowed to improve their technical and television capabilities, which should result in a growth for the company. However it is