WWE recently had their Q2 2021 earnings call with investors, where a number of topics were discussed, including if WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon sees AEW as a viable competition. McMahon was asked a number of questions such as how WWE currently views AEW as competition, if McMahon feels WWE needs to counter AEW by investing in additional wrestlers and if this is a similar type of situation just like it was back in the day with WCW.
This is what Vince McMahon said:
“Well, it certainly is not a situation where ‘rising tides’ because that was when Ted Turner was coming after us with all of Time Warner’s assets as well.” “That was a different situation. AEW is where they are. I don’t really know what their plans are, all I know is what our plans are.”
“I don’t consider them competition in the way that I would consider WCW back in the day, not anywhere near close to that. And I’m not so sure what their investments are as far as their talent is concerned, but perhaps we can give them some more.”
WWE President and Chief Revenue Officer Nick Khan then added to Vince McMahon’s comments and revealed how WWE sees everything as competition.
This is what Nick Khan said:
“I think the way we always look at these situations, you know, it’s sort of like a horse race where the horse has blinders on.” “We’re looking straight ahead at our lane and making sure that we stay in the front of the pack. At the same time, everything is our competition. Someone had a line a couple of weeks ago, that we all chuckled at and agreed with – sleep is our competition. Right?”
“If it was up to us, people could be up 24 hours a day, watching content from different content providers, hopefully including ours. So, we don’t look at any organization particularly as competition, yet we see everything as competitive with what we’re trying to do, in terms of eyeballs.”
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