Posts Tagged Vince McMahon
The Donald Vs. Mr. McMahon
Posted by Vernetti in Clever parody, General tomfoolery on June 23rd, 2009
Fans of this blog know that I am a wrestling fan, but getting my professional start working in marketing, I am a huge fan of classic marketing and business decisions. It is not hard to see why certain people are multi millionaires and how others fail miserably.
It all comes down to a balance of understanding your audience, creativity, and calculated risk taking. You can see it at all levels of sports and entertainment.
Why do certain television shows or movies succeed while others crash and burn? Why do some baseball teams, with unlimited money, fail to win a championship while other teams with no budget continue to compete?
It is easy – check the ego, make smart decisions, and go 100%.
Vince McMahon has done that in every endeavor he has taken on. While the XFL was a financial failure, seemingly every other business venture in the world of wrestling has been a home run. He practically built large scale live event programming, revolutionized pay per view, and has the longest running weekly television show in cable history.
McMahon struck gold again when he had Donald Trump “purchase” Monday Night Raw on USA network. Whether you like wrestling or not, it was hard not to turn on one of the television networks or entertainment shows and see Donald Trump at a wrestling event. All the major news networks and entertainment outlets had reporters and cameras in Green Bay on Monday to cover the event.
Who else could get anyone to go to Green Bay on a Monday night unless it was during the middle of the NFL season.
Much like his encounter with the Denver Nuggets, McMahon manufactured a story by interjecting a media mogul like Trump into regular programming. They even ramped things up by making the whole two-hour show commercial free to the television viewers and refunded the money of the arena audience.
Classic move. No matter what you think of McMahon and the WWE, you need to respect the marketing genius of his entire organization.
Vince McMahon vs. NBA — It’s On!
Posted by Vernetti in Disturbing news on May 20th, 2009
There is an ongoing conflict between the NBA, Denver Nuggets, and the WWE. You can read all of the details here.
I am a wrestling fan and certainly no fan of the NBA. Wrestling, although basically a male soap opera and more entertainment than sport, is far more entertaining than pro basketball. The NBA as a whole is very boring and my views are certainly backed up by the cable ratings where wrestling typically holds the top spot on cable all year.
Sure, there are spikes in popularity of the NBA (like playoff times) which drive viewership higher than WWE – and I would hope so. The WWE website drew in 18 million unique viewers last month, more than NBA.com or any of the top television affiliates.
I know – wrestling is fake and the NBA is real. I get it – the NBA as a whole is a larger business because of the amount of teams and cities involved. I understand – Vince McMahon is a television character while Stan Kroenke is a real businessman with Walmart money.
I am not buying most of that. The fact of the matter is that, according to Forbes, McMahon is worth $1.1 billion dollars while Kroenke is worth $1.8 billion. All I am saying is that it is pretty close and whether you respect it or not the WWE is a HUGE business.
Now, the NBA and the Nuggets will win and play their Monday game at home. However, the real winner will be the WWE. This is a giant promotion for them in the main stream – it is on ESPN, the AP, CNN, talk shows, FOX, etc. The Denver screw up gives the WWE free publicity. McMahon is hamming it up – calling Kroenke out.
He told ESPN, “Quite frankly, it is my view that Stan Kroenke should be arrested, should be arrested for impersonating a good businessman, because he is not a good businessman.”
Now that is a little harsh. However, it is great promotion and the ultimate gamesmanship. While the WWE may lose the Pepsi Center as a venue going forward, the promotion of the company is far greater than anything that will benefit the NBA or the Nuggets.
In fact if you think about it, the basics of what McMahon is saying is true. Why on earth would anyone schedule a WWE event with even the chance of a playoff game? I don’t think that is even on Kroenke’s radar – but it falls under his watch without question. The NBA looks petty telling the Nuggets to just deal with it. The Nuggets are held hostage in their own building which is really laughable.
I gotta see what happens here. With this much notice, the WWE could move to a new facility. However, McMahon says he is coming to Denver even if he has to hold his event in a parking lot.
How much promotion would that bring?
And really – would you want to deal with this man?
He calls himself the “Genetic Jackhammer” and who are we to argue?
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