 What's good, Josh your boy Ross back again with another video. So we're gonna be checking out the decline of WWE what happened Well, I can tell you what happened Vince McMahon happened. That's that's where the decline Went at I know a lot of people like to make the point. Oh, it went because it was at TV 14 and then it went to PG It wasn't the same and to an extent that is true But I always look at NXT NXT was a a PG product that they They kept the wrestling essence pure and it worked You didn't you don't have to be super edgy You don't have to be over the top with the with the you know the content that you bring Just make sure the wrestling and the stories that you're telling is good and important And you push the young talent and push the people that the fans want to see that's really all you have to do You know stay in touch with what the fans want not every time what we want, you know make sense but you know understand where we're coming from and Try to Tell a cohesive story wrestling wise where we can buy into the product It don't have to be a whole bunch of blood You know a whole bunch of crazy stuff to make wrestling great, you know saying You don't have to do that. That's all I'm saying it can still work in a PG landscape You just have to be able to tell better stories in the ring Have a lot of wrestlers to be themselves character wise and And I have faith in the talent that you have there. That's really what it is So if you want to know the downfall to decline of WWE Here's the cliff notes Vincent Mann. There we go, but we're gonna check this video I appreciate all love and support. Let's get right into this The wrestling world in shock today former champion Chris Benoit found dead in his Atlanta home along with his wife and young son police now Treating the discovery as a double murder suicide a shock he find at a downtown Minneapolis hotel the body of world What's the entertainment star Eddie Guerrero and how there's drugs and their steroids in this business? And they need to I think Vince needs to definitely enforce the drug policy more than what he's doing on July 22 2008 WWE officially transitioned all of their programming to PG Meaning that all of their television shows and pay-per-views would hold less shock value and contain themes That parents may deem suitable for their young children the move came after a long time WWE superstar Chris Benoit killed himself his wife and son in a double homicide in June of 2007 the incident left the mainstream media painting WWE in a very poor light and after the death there was much more finger-pointing that went on questioning WWE's integrity a small time before that WWE instituted a wellness policy after a steroid scandal and the death of fan favorite Eddie Guerrero Who passed away at age 38 the other reason as to why the company went PG was that CEO? Linda McMahon was leaving her position in the company and running for Connecticut Senate Yeah, so WWE had to clean up their act a show like what they were putting out wouldn't be fitting a potential senator the gruesome violence Presentation of women themes and overall subject matter was one which many people found inappropriate So the McMahon spent 50 million dollars on Linda's Senate campaign and donated another 8 million to universities for grants But the campaign was unsuccessful even though Linda lost WWE still believed that they had to clean up their act and the PG rating stayed What WWE also wanted was to entice wrestling in general as fans were seen as cheap and having no brand loyalty Oftentimes you'd see WWE on random ads for things such as acne medication So 2008 came and the shift to PG programming was underway This is what many fans believe was the downfall of the product that they once loved But before we delve into the now we have to go back to the past. It was October 19th 1999 I can see that like I said I understand why people say PG was the downfall and I get that to an extent is that's partially true But I also think it could have worked a lot better in the PG era If they would have did certain things correctly hell We're still in the PG era, but at the same time There's some things that still work on the show because of how they're booked how the characters are booked how the matches flow that's because of Storytelling character development those things matter WWF went from a private company to a publicly traded company Meaning that the company sold ownership in its business to individual investors or investment firms Why did they do this you might ask well They offered stocks so that they could build capital to expand into different avenues Aside from just the in-ring and touring aspect So if the company would reduce risk of losing its money and the money Invested into their company in the form of selling ownership could be translated to different media ventures Yeah, if we know anything about Vince McMahon, it's that he's a businessman before all else Yeah, we'd seen his failures with the Ico pro supplements and the world bodybuilding Federation But once the company went public we saw McMahon try to grow the WWF brand even more We saw the company open up WWF New York trying to combat the WCW nitro grill turns out putting a restaurant in Times Square Isn't the most profitable business decision and by April of 03 that restaurant was shut down and it cost Vince $25 million we saw Vince McMahon try to launch his own football league XFL which cost him and NBC $35 million WWE Studios and WWE Niagara Falls Weren't the success that they thought they would be point is before trying to be a wrestling company WWF wanted to get into mainstream touring and the retail business You see at this time the company was in its most popular time frame known as the attitude era a time period between 1997 and 2002 where if you linked wrestling to just about anything it would sell sex to enhance our Federation had an emphasis on relying on sexual themes shock value course language and a more mid-teens to adult oriented approach A time where the crowds were the loudest story lines and characters were the most compelling and the wrestling business was at its height Following that era the company rebranded from the World Wrestling Federation to World Wrestling Entertainment following a lawsuit with the World Wildlife Fund over the WWF trademark in 2002 and the WWE went from this extremely sexual barbaric and shock value driven attitude era to a bit more toned down but still Controversial Aggression era many of the characters from the previous time frame were gone or on a part-time basis and the popularity of Wrestling was down from the previous period it was during this time where the Benoit incident took place and after that The failed Senate run and other allegations McMahon knew that he had to adapt or his company would be left outside the greater entertainment world with so much controversy Already surrounding them and that's where we come today the PG rating for WWE programming We have seen some of the worst angles and segments during this time frame Yes, the Muppets a commentator thinking he was super Cena 47 and a half million raw guest hosts Italian night fart little people's court a computer being the general manager of a nationally broadcast television show truly some of the worst television in the history of television This is what many fans say ruined WWE everything they once loved was gone and they were left with a shell of what the Company once was so did PG really kill WWE as a whole the first thing wrestling fans immediately point their fingers to is declining ratings You can attribute terrible ratings to the downfall of television overall But did the audience really tune out as much as people say they did well since 1993 WWE's premier TV program has been Monday Night Raw and for this video We're gonna use raw as the benchmark the heights for this TV show came in the late 90s where they scored numbers topping out at 8.1 I want y'all to understand That's a lot of people to be watching your show 8 in the millions 8.1 million 7.4 million That that's a lot of people to be watching your show But you have to also understand that was a different time 99 2000 people were actually just watching TV when they got home. That's now it's different people don't watch TV as much I'm just keeping the stack people don't watch TV as much as streaming. I don't even watch TV I don't even have a TV set up like you know to watch like cable or regular TV I literally just have my smart TV hooked up to the different apps. I just watch different streaming networks Well, I watch YouTube. That's it Dead Ash, you know I'm saying so is one of those things where it's like they don't get all those views They will never reach those views ever again only because people are watching other things Hell, what's the point of watching a boring three hour raw if you can watch get the clips get the highlights on YouTube So what I do well, I'll let y'all tell me what happened if and if I want to check out a segment I will you know saying so a lot of people do that and a lot of people just don't watch TV in general So the numbers will be lower off is obviously by default million viewers Before we get to the ratings we have to understand them first in the US and Canada ratings are done through a company called Nielsen The company gets households to become part of their data sampling program and those households are known as Nielsen families They then install meters in these homes to measure how programming is watched what age bracket it's watched by and how long it's watched They then take those numbers and extrapolate them to give advertisers information on who is watching what how accurate are these numbers? They're not accurate not at all numbers represent a small portion of a general audience Which is actually watching the set programming all ratings truly are as an estimate of how many people are Watching a certain show at a certain time, but for the purposes of this video Let's use five-year increments from 2000 to see the drop-off in raw's rating in the year 2000 raw was averaging 5.87 million five years later come 2005 that five point eight went down to a four Come 2010 WWE's flagship TV show was down to a 3.28 and then dipped even further to 2.64 with the addition of a third hour by 2020 Monday night raw's average viewership fell to 1.87 million a drop of about four million viewers over a 20-year period If you look at raw's decline overall the past few years against the top 50 non-news cable programs You can see that raw's decline is massive in 2020. It went down over 20% Smackdown, it's a little bit more gradual. That's because it's on a much stronger network Even if you go by single years from 1999 to 2003 you'll see that the TV numbers for raw were already declining roughly losing about a million viewers every five years For raw since 2000, but they're still getting TV deals. Why well live sports always do better than something like a sitcom or a movie Consumers choose to watch sports and professional wrestling live more often than not and because WWE continues to rank fairly high in key demographics Advertisers see WWE as a hot commodity ticket That's one of the critical reasons as to why a third hour was added to raw USA Network saw it as lucrative when it came to potential advertising and revenue Even though historically raw's third hour has seen a high drop-off rate But still USA benefits from putting a bidding war on advertising See that and this is one of the reasons why it's kind of a tangent But this is one of the reasons why I know a lot of us are looking forward to potentially a title versus title match at WrestleMania and Maybe you know in you know combining ending the brand split, but it's not gonna happen And this is why this is this is why I've always said the brand split It's not gonna happen because these separate networks Fox and USA. They're not having that they they want to have separate things going on and Be able to Increase their money their revenue for that particular network. That's why I don't see it happening hence this kind of leads into what I was, you know Why I think you know, I believe in that theory because that third raw that third hour raw is fucking atrocious It's just that's too much wrestling That's too much wrestling on a week-to-week basis But they went with that way because USA was like yo y'all should add another hour We'll give you that time slot because that's more money. It's more money for the network. It's more money for WWE That's why they did it. You know I'm saying so it's like at the end of the day It hurts to show it does and I always I feel like Vince is he's a businessman before anything else So I I don't see them ending the brand split because at the end of the day It's gonna make them money to keep Separate titles on separate shows to have you know different feels because these networks They ultimately have say so in kind of what happens a little bit on the shows and how things move around so Time fans always criticize Ross falling ratings But for WWE that doesn't really matter as long as they maintain these numbers. They have guaranteed income WWE's deal to broadcast Monday Night Raw on USA pays them 265 million dollars a year until 2024 the WWE on Fox deal pays the company 205 million dollars per year until 2024 which is why they have say so on On who they want on particular shows so my fox was not getting rid of some of Roman Reigns I can say that now They have say so on that they do or as well add to that that WWE gets approximately 45 to 50 million dollars for two shows a year over a 10-year stretch in the form of Saudi Arabia Specials and financially they're set where the issue comes in and where they're losing fans is the actual Substance of the program each year more and more fans tune out of the show why? Because WWE cannot create a cast of characters to get them intrigued Let's go back to when I was a kid for our generation. It was Eddie Guerrero John Cena Lesnar Batista Randy Orton the generation before us the Rocks Stone Cold Triple H mankind Before them it was HPK Bret Hart undertaker razor Ramon a cast of characters which had us hooked and wanting to see what they would do the drama the antics the over-the-top stories they just Transcended the game you look at how WWE hasn't been able to build new stars It's a testament as to why fans stopped watching. There's literally one guy right now that brings intrigue One guy WWE has missed the boat on stars who the fans want to embrace and want to see on that next level Eric Bischoff put it best. I think the WWE has done a great job over the last 15 years 20 years of making WWE the star and the talent is a supporting cast member That really says it all give me a reason to care and I'll make time to watch your programming Wrestling has kind of lost that cool factor if you really think about it once you hit a certain age fans are tuning out They aren't creating as many of those second and third generation fans Who are going to pass on the tradition of watching wrestling oftentimes? It's one and done kids become adults and as adults they see WWE as a program for kids those same fans that WWE could have had for a longer period of time Go somewhere like the UFC which has gained a lot of momentum with teenagers Doesn't help that your writers don't even know the talent's name Another reason as to why fans tuned out is it's more easy to consume content than ever You look on social media shows are recapped in seconds Why would you want to sit through two or three hours? If you can just watch a 10 minute highlight video on youtube Consumption of media has changed people are cutting cords and not as many people watch prime time television anymore in the u.s Consumption of television is declining as you can see add to that that WWE just has too much content They have seven plus hours of shows on a weekly basis with raw smack town main events nxt and more It's very hard for the company to keep things unique with that much programming But does that give them an excuse to produce the content? They do Hell no smackdown has been a show which has always been PG Only issue is that PG in the early 2000s was the equivalent to tv 14. Yeah, WWE right now is probably TVG more than anything else But why don't they push the envelope a little bit more? If you think about it, there's a lot that they could do with the tv PG rating. Yes If I had to take an educated guess It's probably because we live in a world of political correctness and everything is over analyzed at every turn There's someone sitting behind their keyboard just waiting to cancel your tv show The problem goes a bit deeper than just tv figures though We've seen full-on pockets of arenas during paper views Completely tarped up because no one bought tickets Monday night raw is half empty venues basically bribing people to go watch WWE with two for one tickets That is because live event figures are down Consumers are not wanting to go watch WWE events as much as they once did here You can see that WWE live events account for about 10 of WWE's overall revenue and each year The amount of money they make from live events gets smaller if you take out the pandemic year of 2020 And you look at WWE's paid attendance since 2017 It's down by 29% If you want to gauge popularity even more then you can look at something like google web search Which has been down by 61 percent since 2017 the interest in WWE's product is plateauing And it's being seen as a casual event more than ever. Oh look, WWE's in town. You got a few hours to kill Yeah, let's go. So you may ask if people aren't coming to events as much as they once did How does WWE make money? Well, do you guys remember in 2014? WWE launched this thing called the WWE network having everything from prank shows Documentaries and all the wrestling you could possibly want Vince McMahon and WWE themselves saw that they had to cannibalize the pay-per-view model and get into the growing video on demand world The venture cost WWE 66 million dollars to start up the network had varying success And would see dips and subscribers after WrestleMania season and on a yearly basis overall So in 2021 nbc universal streaming service peacock acquired the rights to distribute WWE networks content the deal got 1 billion dollars here in canada that right is given to roger sports and entertainment for both the network And broadcasting all weekly shows on sports net WWE studios is something that you guys might be familiar with and despite what many people lead you to believe The studio is actually very successful at pulling WWE in money That production company has deals with Netflix, A&E and universal to distribute content You guys know how they're always advertising Ms. And Mrs. Total Bellas or some animated film they have coming up That's because that rocks them in a ton of money It's actually really strange if you look at it the wrestling world has completely changed First wrestling events would be on free tv and it was basically a commercial to get people into live events Then at live events it became about selling merch Then it turned to pay-per-view buys and attendance numbers and after that they made it about streaming the WWE network Now it's mainly all tv deals and letting your content be filtered to other companies or services Why do they get so much money? Well, they're well respected and trusted in the community and they've locked away all mentions to what I started this video with WWE used to make most of its money selling things directly to consumers like tickets to shows Pay-per-views dvds magazines and action figures Now WWE makes most of its money selling things to other businesses As you can see each year that number is getting larger. Why is it getting larger? Well, the tv rights world has exploded social media sponsorships If you look at the other end in terms of live events pay-per-views and home entertainment That number is projected to have a large dip in the coming years as everything shifts over to social media and heavy advertising It kind of makes sense, right? They don't have to give you the hardcore consumer a good in-ring product as long as these financials match up and investors are happy And there we go That's why they can put out bullshit storylines on television As long as these networks as long as these other brand deals they have or cool. They don't give a damn That's that's literally what it is. They can literally feed you bullshit Cringy bullshit And it doesn't matter because guess what they're still gonna make money The only way they really lose money is if people completely stop like they don't get no type of views No type of like people stop watching it people stop going to the shows completely Like people don't even pay attention to it But they'll always be bringing in money, which is why it's not going to change anytime soon when it comes to What we see inside the ring Most of these investors could care less about wrestling the dollar signs are the only thing that matters And without them going PG that would have never been able to happen Look at their yearly revenue from 2015 to 2020 the 2020 number probably would have been larger if they were touring Another huge chunk of their revenue is social media and the platform you're watching this video on right now YouTube WWE over its social media instagram facebook twitter has over one billion followers on youtube They rank in the top 10 most subscribed youtube channels. The company makes an estimated 45.8 million dollars yearly in terms of youtube revenue media advertisements like snickers kfc Cricket wireless the works if you look into WWE's annual reports You'll see that each year their social media engagement is increasing and the company pushes hard for that They are not a wrestling company. They are a media and entertainment company To that market in a way WWE plucked themselves out of becoming an afterthought and became one of the world's most profitable companies But since they're making this much money it also raises a huge question Why are they firing people despite being in the best financial position they ever have? True ever since WWE named nick con president and chief revenue officer The company has slash contracts which raises the question of a possible sale The thing about the cuts is they're all pretty random if you look at it If you want to re-baseline your company logic would suggest that you do so with cheaper and less proven commodities But those cheaper contracts seem to be the ones which the company is letting go With that they've also let top merchandise shippers such as bray Wyatt just leave when a company clears the cover like that So to speak it has eyes rolling could wwe be sold Rumors would suggest companies like disney nbc and comcasts have led the way when it comes to those discussions But if the company were to sell it would be a very slippery slope Look as much as people may hate wwe the way they do business their storylines their relationship with the saudi government Wrestlers need places to work. Let me put it too like this If a wrestling company is owned by a corporation that gives no shit about wrestling It will do away with wwe's past and just keep pushing into the media area Which is where the money is currently wwe owns an extremely extensive tape library everything from nwa Crocket stampede mid-south the attitude era if another corporation were to buy wwe the history of wwe would die away And this is the thing. I know a lot of you guys have been saying oh vince is gonna sell wwe It not could be a thing, but if he sells it he pretty much kills it I mean he's he's he's part of the reason of the decline as it is now But if he sells wwe to a corporation, they're not gonna give a fuck Oh, it's over. It's definitely over. That's why aww is staying in their lane because at the end of the day They sell wwe. It's not gonna be the same, bro. It's gonna be worse. You're gonna have people who really don't care about wrestling Trying to run things That's dead on arrival And that's why a sale to a company like disney would be one of the worst moves ever Just look at wwe on peacock the amount of censorship how inaccessible they've made certain things The past is already dying. It really is something to be scared about So to conclude the wwe going pg killed the company as much as fans speculate that it did The answer Is yes Interest in the product is at an all-time low the numbers show a decline and more and more fans are turning to all elite wrestling Which is cut into vince mcmahon's long-standing monopoly over the wrestling business. Here's the thing Everything wwe did in the attitude era was cool, but at the end of the day it was unsustainable You could argue that anything the company did after 2001 onwards didn't work Wrestling lost its coolness and once we got to about the mid 2000s the aura really wore off So fans who were going to tune out anyways were already gone the move to pg However was the smartest business decision the company ever made after so much controversy They cleaned up their acts and became trusted among mainstream media the pg rating allowed more fans to tune into the show They try to appeal to everyone they base their ideology their business model and their shows for the casual consumer And of course children it's a business you appeal to the demographic that will keep you afloat And for them that is kids Shock value wears off things like chair shots and adult themes had become commonplace Now when they happen they feel bigger and there's more intrigue The company though was able to make a global expansion and if they didn't go pg They would not be able to is this company overhated without a doubt But if you bleed everything together at the end of the day, it's a business and the company is killing it where it Matters wwe already has a built-in hardcore audience to the point where they'll be fine unless you know But I want to hear from you guys. What do you think? Do you guys think pg unless they lose that hardcore audience and I've said throughout this video pg It's not the ultimate killer of or the decline of wwe. It takes part of it It's part of the decline in wwe, but it's not the ultimate reason once again It all comes down to the bottom dollar Vincent man is a businessman before anything else. So he's gonna make sure he gets as much profit as he possibly can That's what he cares about. That's what these networks care about. That's what these other brands care about making as much money Off wwe and there's nothing wrong with that But the storyline and everything else the in ring wrestling. It doesn't really matter to them This is why aw is a thing. This is why you have aw because yes, they have their own sponsorship But they're more on the edgier side. They care more about the in ring wrestling So there is your substitution and we all want wwe to be better in a sense, but at the end of the day This is what we have. This is the product we have and uh, you know There that's why we have other companies that you can check out and I'm liking where aw is heading In the direction in the future of their content. Hopefully they don't fall in the footsteps of wwe. So comment down below Let me know do you guys uh You know, what do you guys take on the decline of wwe? Is it strictly just them going to pg or do you feel like, you know, all these brand deals and Vince McMahon all all those combining with the decline of actually Like wrestlers being pushed and storylines being created Do you feel like that could be part of the reason like let me know what your reason Reasons for the decline in wwe. I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions. Appreciate all love and support row two 70k appreciate y'all kicking with me. See y'all next week. Peace