It was reported last week that a significantly large portion of the WWE athletes were distressed the Vince McMahon had made the decision to return to live broadcasting. Both Raw and Smackdown have to resume live shows behind closed doors at the Performance Centre.
WWE superstars would prefer to do what AEW are doing in order to protect their health and safety. AEW are bringing talent into their performance centre for a few days every month to pre-tape a whole load of shows thus minimising the chance of catching Coronavirus.
Has USA and FOX put pressure on Vince McMahon to ditch the pre-taped shows and start to produce live shows instead? According to Dave Meltzer, that’s exactly what is happening.
Meltzer reported that WWE’s contracts with FOX and NBC only allow for three pre-taped episodes of Raw to be produced in one calendar year.
Meltzer continues his theory to say that although it is not out in the open, the TV networks may have asked McMahon to put in live shows or they may withhold money as per their written contracts.
“While nobody will say so publicly, the fear was that by violating the contract, it would give the networks the legal ability to withhold money or find a way to change the deals. With no house shows, the company, like all sports companies, is surviving largely based on television revenue, but the networks paying that are also taking in far less revenue than they projected at this point in time due to the pandemic.”
These are unprecedented times but surely McMahon needs to think about his athletes before he thinks of his bank balance. Could he reach some of deal with the Television companies?
