FITE COO Mike Weber Shares Why WWE Isn’t Filming House Shows

In a recent appearance with The Business of The Business, FITE’S Chief Operations Officer Mike Weber was asked about the possibility of FITE striking a partnership with WWE to film and release house shows (via Wrestling Inc). Weber was optimistic about the feasibility of such a project, but offered his theories on why WWE hasn’t moved forward with the concept to date. He cited the desire for consistent production value and also explained how WWE will use house formats as a testing ground for concepts that may or may not eventually make it to a broadcast show. In his mind, the company may not want to tip their hand by making such shows widely accessible to the complete audience. You can read a highlight from Weber and listen to the full podcast below.

On the logistics of filming a house show for a company like WWE: “They definitely have an interest in doing it. I’m sort of surprised they’re not. In what I think is their opinion, it’s gotta look the level of Fox or nothing … So I don’t think they want to put a smaller production out there. Could it be done? Yeah, it could be done overnight. It would be easy to go in there and do those shows, because it’s still nice venues, bigger venues than, say, the GCW shows. GCW’s a good example; you can film those shows almost anywhere, and they work, and fans like them. I think it’s very important to [WWE] to keep that level of TV production at the highest level. That’s a $150,000-$200,000 … production budget to go and do every show, which would not make sense for your quote-unquote ‘house shows.'”

Listen to “Episode 119 – Mike Weber, COO of FITE” on Spreaker.