Does SmackDown lose money? Dave Meltzer recently speculated it did. Eric Bischoff has his own take on that theory from Mr. Meltzer.
This is what Eric Bischoff said. “Here’s the interesting part, it doesn’t matter. Because, here’s what we don’t know. Let’s just take it at face value alright, which is really hard to do. If we take that at face value, USA is only getting $47,000 a minute for WWE ad time or FOX, okay. Does anybody know the terms of that licensing agreement from between FOX and WWE is? Well, again, this is speculation but here’s the point I’m trying to make. What don’t we know? We don’t know if NBC Universal or FOX are participating in other forms of revenue in addition to the ad sales. So they may be not quite getting whole on ad sales, but they’re making up for it by participating in other forms of revenue.
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Eric Bischoff believes wrestling needs a solid TV business partner, which is why he tried to get TNA with Viacom.
Eric Bischoff continues, “For example, this is a what if, but what if in that licensing agreement NBC Universal also participates in the upside of other events premium live events. Who knows? There’s a lot of ways to participate. It’s one of the reasons I wanted Viacom to invest in TNA, so that TNA had a solid television partner. And yeah, while in many respects it doesn’t make a lot of sense for Viacom to own it unless they’re participating in other revenue streams in the upside with them and there can be a multitude of those opportunities within that agreement. I’m not saying that exists, I don’t know. But it could.”
The claim by Meltzer has been made before, yet WWE continued signing higher and higher TV deals. Perhaps Eric Bischoff has a point? What do you think?
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