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Stephanie McMahon on How the White Rabbit Storyline Helped Grow WWE’s Audience

December 1, 2022 | Posted by Jeffrey Harris
WWE Extreme Rules - Bray Wyatt Is Back, Stephanie McMahon Image Credit: WWE

– During the 6th Annual Wells Fargo TMT Summit, WWE Chairwoman and Co-CEO Stephanie McMahon discussed the White Rabbit mystery storyline in WWE and how the usage of QR codes and ARG aspects led to a 20% increase in WWE SmackDown’s audience. WWE Director of Longtime Creative Rob Fee helped craft the storyline, which culminated in Bray Wyatt’s return at WWE Extreme Rules. Below are some highlights (via WrestlingInc.com):

Stephanie McMahon on the storyline that saw the return of Bray Wyatt: “We were bringing back one of our biggest stars named Bray Wyatt. We used a multimedia approach and hired a horror writer to come in and really help us craft this narrative so our fans were engaged.”

On how the ARG angle saw a spike in viewership of 20% for WWE SmackDown: “It’s strategies like that really do work. The audience today is different. They’re growing, they’re evolving. Some people want to have a laid-back experience, and that’s great, but a lot of people really want to engage deeply, and have fun, and have misleads and misdirections.”