American wrestling is at a crossroads with regards to its future and maintaining its popularity. I’ve spoken at length in one of my previous articles about the benefits of competition and how it drives, stimulates leading companies. Indeed, it is the prime reason why I hope that TNA could potentially grow to a level of parity with the WWE, especially as I feel it has the superior brand both in terms of wrestling ability and in terms of its associated entertainment.
As some may remember, I pen my articles from a business perspective. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, I do not possess the same level of wrestling knowledge or guile as my brilliant colleagues do, despite being a massive fan of the industry. Secondly, I am a businessman and I study business, I think wrestling is one of the biggest “modern” industries in existence. Today, I pose an interesting question… what if British wrestling could be the alternative to the WWE, overcoming the technical difficulties that TNA currently face?
So the first thing to consider is thus, why has TNA not been able to grow to match the “powerhouse” that is the WWE? Effectively, the WWE possesses a concept known in economics as “monopoly power”. This brings about numerous advantages, they have a higher capital base (more money in simple terms), a brand loyal fan-base besotted with the idea of the WWE Universe and first refusal on major TV and commercial partnerships, with TNA having to accept second-place for these arrangements. Additionally, over time we have seen the WWE subsume other wrestling companies such as WCW and ECW, purchasing all of their old footage and airing it on TV as “vintage WWE”. This is completely immoral in my opinion. It may be legal but purchasing the intellectual work of another firm and marketing it as its own work is a pure example of cultural degradation. In any other business industry this type of behaviour would be rebuffed, the WWE gets away with it purely because of the monopoly power that I mention.
This monopoly power creates another business phenomenon, “barriers to entry”. This cultural domination that the WWE exerts, backed with huge resources, a blinded fan-base and lucrative commercial deals means that it can stamp out the competition. It does this by poaching wrestlers and storylines from competitors (the AJ Styles-Dixie Carter storyline being effectively regurgitated within a month by the WWE); securing media deals forcing poor time slots and lower viewership’s upon TNA (look at the first Monday night wars between the two); and buying firms out (WCW, ECW etc). There is a perception amongst American media outlets that TNA is a poor product and brand, this is a fallacy in my opinion. I believe that the WWE have executed what sociologist Anthony Giddens refers to as the “second face” of power, they have used their monopoly power to build a perception of shabbiness around TNA which is completely untrue. All of this combined hinders the potential growth of TNA.
A British wrestling firm would not have these hurdles to overcome. The one commercial realm that TNA has continually bettered the WWE is internationally. The European market is not so brand-loyal to the WWE, not as blinkered. A fledgling British wrestling firm could build its own brand and develop a loyal fan-base that, given time, could match WWE (the European population is much larger than that of the USA). We have different media outlets over here, giving a British firm a key advantage in channel distribution, which is a marketing term for providing customers access to the brand. I would also add that Britain has a historical supremacy in developing sports and entertainment. English football, cricket and rugby have become global sensations. American football, baseball and basketball by contrast are rarely played outside of America. Plus, one of the consequences of the recent Brexit vote is a rise in patriotism and nationalism, whatever your political persuasion it is undeniably an opportunity for a British firm to try and conquer the British market vis a vis wrestling. The stream of European wrestlers travelling to the USA for wrestling is highly prolific- Wade Barrett, Magnus, William Regal, Rockstar Spud, Rob Terry to name but a few. Seeing as Vince McMahon only hires a select few of European wrestlers to appeal to different ethnicities and heritages living within the USA it would be fair to assume that there is wealth of European talent untapped, ideal for a European firm looking to compete, especially as many European wrestlers may not wish to move to the US. Finally, veteran European wrestlers within the WWE may swap being mid-card wasted talent in the WWE to be a pioneer of new, fresh, visionary British firm.
So, having established there is definitely a market for a British alternative to the WWE and having established a British firm faces less stringent conditions as a competitor than TNA currently does, we just need to consider how a British firm could develop. Firstly, there has to be changes from the 1970’s era that included Giant Haystacks, Big Daddy and Catweazel. By all means, keep the venues, keep the character and rivalry development, these are all strong points of the existing system. However, to win the TV contracts and breech the foreign markets, taking the share off of WWE and to an extent TNA, there needs to be a development of the entertainment side, from choreographing to brand imagery, from developing more storylines to increasing the range of wrestlers. It is only by doing this could a credible and fresh firm challenge the WWE domination. Also, why not be visionary, why not only have four PPV’s a year (less is more). The new firm could even follow a Tennis style system, having grand slams across the globes and a ranking system. Britain is renowned for developing global sport, apply this to Wrestling and the WWE’s global dominance could be cracked.
To reiterate the first point that I made, I don’t hold the wrestling expertise of my colleagues. A discussion for how to build a wrestling company and make it attractive is more suited to a Jack Williams article, as he possesses that expertise. What I do know however is that no monopoly is bulletproof, any monopoly can be cracked if the people see how complacent and exploitative they become and the WWE scenario is no different. Conquer the international markets and the rest will fall!
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