Vince McMahon takes a lot of heat for being complacent. With big network deals and huge overseas contracts, since the days when WWE purchased WCW and practically eliminated their competition in the sports entertainment and wrestling space, many have argued Vince has gotten lazy.
Even with the emergence of AEW, there are arguments Vince doesn't see them as real competition and, as a result, the overall on-air WWE product has suffered. WWE President & Chief Revenue Officer Nick Khan recently spoke with Alfred Konuwa of Forbes and said he doesn't agree.
Khan disagreed with the concern from fans that too much power and too much money coming from big network deals will lead to WWE taking it easy. Considering WWE has made more money than ever from content deals, and knowing the revenue isn't coming because of a tremendous television product, Khan says there's still an incentive to put on a good show. Guaranteed money from content providers doesn't change the fact that WWE's Chairman & CEO remains hungry after all these years.
Khan said, “I think once you’ve been really, really hungry in life and in business, it’s tough to be really, really full." He added that, "It’s sort of the culture of the company that we always have to work harder than we worked before."
WWE Has Big Plans For The Summer
One of the things Khan says WWE is trying to do is look for opportunities that might not have been present in the past. Among them, he cited the company's new relationship with Bad Bunny.
Khan added,
“It made it a touch easier to get a deal done this time because they weren’t—over the course of however long the deal is—is not in 25 different cities during that time. The bulk of concert money is made in the summertime. It doesn’t appear as if there are going to be big tours during the summer, even we’re all hopeful, so we’ll see what other folks we’re talking to and who you’ll see in the mix.”
He added that WWE is trying to strike up a deal with Cardi B. Khan confirmed that the company has interest in working with the rapper and potentially others.