Reason Behind WWE Decision to Going Back To Live Shows, Wrestlers Unhappy

Wrestlers Unhappy About WWE Going Back To Live TV Shows, Possible Reason Behind This Decision

As noted earlier, the call has been made to scrap this weekend’s TV tapings and resume live TV shows from the empty WWE Performance Center next week.

This is an interesting decision because the Governor of Florida issued a 30-day “stay-at-home” order this month to limit the spread of coronavirus. The decision to scrap the tapings was made earlier on Friday when they taped 205 Live and SmackDown. The crew was told to tape this week’s SmackDown as close to live as possible.

Fightful is reporting that a “very aggressive” Vince McMahon is the person who made the call and wrestlers were said to be unhappy about the decision. The staff was given a letter on Friday that said that they are considered “essential media” if they were stopped by police. “Newspapers, television, radio and other media” are on the list of essential services deemed by the state so it looks like WWE is following state laws by continuing with the tapings.

Meltzer noted that wrestlers were also shocked at the decision while those close to management defended the decision, citing that it was the correct economic decision even if there are questions from people who say they should not be running shows at all.

Meltzer noted that NBCUniversal and FOX contracts have a clause that requires that only a small amount of shows can be taped per year. The number of Raw shows that can be taped in a year are three. The taped shows are usually for when they go to Europe and the Christmas week show.

Meltzer said that no one will say it publicly, but there is fear that violating the contract could give networks the legal right to figure out a way to restructure the TV deals or to hold back on payments. WWE and AEW are both surviving on TV revenue. The TV networks are also bringing in less ad revenue.

It would seem unlikely that the TV contracts with WWE will put in danger because, as Meltzer noted, the only sports programming on FOX is WWE and USA’s overall ratings are boosted because of WWE being their highest-rated show. So, WWE has leverage but at some point, the networks could be forced to make cuts if ad revenue continues to decline and if businesses do not open up soon.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis or President Trump have not said anything about WWE continuing with shows and it seems unlikely that a friend of Vince McMahon will step in but there are questions on allowing wrestlers to travel to Florida every week. Wrestlers are said to be unhappy so at what point do they decide to pull out of shows? It’s still not out of the question that the Governor decides to do what California did with UFC that led to ESPN to tell Dana White not to run shows.

It is not clear if it was McMahon’s decision to start doing shows live again as a way to make sure the TV contracts can’t be broken or if there was pressure from the TV networks because of declining ratings. WWE’s plans for the scrapped tapings were to bring people in waves to the PC with the ring ropes and canvas being switched out in between matches.

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