Eric Bischoff On Speculation Surrounding WWE Sale, Why He Thinks WWE Is Releasing Talent

In a recent edition of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff discussed the speculation surrounding a potential WWE sale, why he thinks WWE is releasing talent, and much more. You can read Eric Bischoff’s comments below.

Eric Bischoff on speculation that WWE could sell the company after another round of releases: “The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced WWE is not for sale. I’m not suggesting that’ll never happen. Nobody knows for sure, and I’m not privy to any inside information. But I’m more and more convinced that what WWE is doing – and I think Nick Khan is probably the catalyst for a lot of this – is making good business decisions. What was their stock price before COVD? Somewhere around 70 bucks a share, give or take. Now, it dropped down to the mid-30s when COVID hit. I was pretty convinced that without touring……the idea that component of that business model was going to evaporate, I was kind of like wow, this is not pretty for WWE. That entire company has been set up on a business model where live events and merchandising were such a big chunk of their overall revenue stream. The stock went down, and I thought it was gonna be hard for this company to get back where they were. But I think the stock is around 56 or 58 dollars a share. If I’m WWE, and I’m on the board or the chairman or just a shareholder, I’m sitting here wondering what they are gonna do to get that stock price back up to where it was. That should be everybody’s goal.”

On potential reasons for WWE releasing more talent: “I think, if I’m involved in some of the decisions to try to get that stock price up, I’m looking at talent roster, which is a significant part of expenses in WWE. I’m thinking to myself, ‘Wait a minute, we’re not gonna be touring the same way we used to. I need to start making good decisions. We have 300 people under contract, perhaps that’s too many.’ Maybe there was a reason for it. Maybe the emergence of AEW a couple of years ago. The awareness of the unknown and not being sure what AEW was gonna mean or not sure what that impact was gonna be. I would agree that locking up some talent, or perhaps paying more for that talent than I might otherwise pay, makes sense. But now we know what AEW is, and that’s not discouraging in any way. I think [WWE] probably went, ‘OK, we need to shore this business model up and make some adjustments.’ The world is a different place. I’m more convinced now than I was last week that what WWE is doing is aggressively managing their business model…..I think when the dust settles, we’re gonna see WWE stock price back to where it was pre-COVID and a new touring model that makes more sense in the long run. I don’t think WWE is going anywhere, at least not in the near future.”

If using any of the above quotes, please credit 83 Weeks with an h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.