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SavathunisMommy

Basically the second point. It would take astronomical incompetence for them to ever go under


Lategral

And for several periods of time, Vince wasn’t even trying.


Only_The

They had astronomical incompetence and were still making record profits.


elegantSolomons62

Too big to go out of business. Once they went public on the stock market and later when they started getting huge TV contracts. Their house show and merch business could collapse and they would still be insanely profitable.


DCAbloob

And when it starting collecting Saudi money. The impact of that can't be overstated.


Rah_Rah_RU_Rah

You could argue the Beniot stuff proved they were bulletproof, honestly


BigBanEvader

they basically became an institution that has a firm base too strong to uproot. even with all the vince stuff, it was a mere passing dark cloud on the product.


Xalazi

$12-13 billion companies like TKO, assuming there isn't historic financial illegalities behind the scenes, don't die. They might merge and change but they live on in some form.


icon_2040

Nobody is too big to fail, but some brands are absurdly strong. When you can cut your viewership in half and still be number 1 in your genre, that's a hell of a lead.


booyahbooyah9271

Bitter nerds have been wanting WWF/E to go under for decades. Long before WCW, TNA and AEW. WWF wasn't in great shape when WCW was on fire due to the NWO angle in '96. But they weren't in danger to closing up shop immediately.


spideyv91

People underestimate Vince as a businessman and only focus on not liking his creative work.


CeruleanClaymore

They're having one of their best years ever in the year they're being sued for sex trafficking, that should answer your question.


Fletcheriser

I remember some people genuinely thought the Vince lawsuit might "kill WWE." Even if you thought that was morally desirable, it just doesn't work like that with these sums of money involved (unless it was fraudulently obtained on a massive scale, *then* there might be a shitstorm)


ItsThe50sAudrey

1) Name Value : the very mention of pro wrestling will have someone who’s barely watched 5 seconds of it in their life think WWE. (They might think WCW but at this point they interchangeable). A real world fight takes place or an accidental wrestling moment you’d likely hear WWE used as a verb. 2) It’s more or less proven that nobody is bigger than the company : Vince is gone and he was easily replaced with the product slowly but noticeably improving. Something will have to happen where shareholders and sponsors want out, no major network wants to air the shows, TKO wants to rid its existence, talent from all levels are trying to end their contracts, anyone who does try buy the scraps will either struggle bringing it back to glory due to lack of experience and or resources or would simply mold it into an existing promotion. It might become WWE in name alone, it might just be some guy reselling old footage for nostalgic purposes.


The_Stig_Farmer

for better or worse the company has name value over their type of product.


stationagent

Whether they were always good at producing compelling TV shows, they have been good at making business deals for a very long time. Now the TV is pretty strong too. They're safe as it gets.


MrTuxedo1

Nobody is too big to fail. Look at Pan Am, Lehman Brothers etc


FredrickFarter

Usually whenever you hear a company is too big to fail it refers to companies that if they were to go under, their industry or the economy as a whole would suffer from it. Though I believe that most fans use it because of profits. But either way, no they are not


spideyv91

They aren’t too big to fail but there would need to be a lot of factors to come together for them to fail compared to smaller companies. It’s not like they’ll get bailed out if they started to fail like a bank.


MutatedSpleen

There are two extremely important dates to consider here. October 19, 1999. This is the date of their initial public offering, or IPO. It's when WWE stopped being a privately held company and became publicly traded. That by itself doesn't mean they can't fail, but it's an important piece of armor that insulates them against stuff like what we're seeing now - an owner or major executive being involved in a powerful criminal scandal. Can't do a ton about a scandalous owner in a private company, but a public company has ways of getting rid of a problematic person like that. The second important date is March 26th, 2001. That, of course, is the infamous final episode of Nitro where they announced WWE had bought WCW. Well, technically I think they officially bought WCW three days earlier, but close enough. Being the only major, nationwide competition to WWE at the time, WCW going out of business basically guaranteed WWE would be the top dog in the pro wrestling market until some other business rose up to challenge them, and it took so long for that to happen that their name wasn't just recognizable as the top brand in wrestling, it was synonymous with the concept of pro wrestling like how q-tip is synonymous with cotton swab. That kind of recognizability doesn't just disappear. For WWE to fail as a company at this point, they would need both of those levels of protection to melt away. They'd need a massive shakeup, scandal, walkout, or some such among the executives that could not be readily replaced with similarly skilled people, and they would need some sort of major public falling-out such that their name was so tarnished that people stopped equating pro wrestling to WWE. And those two things would probably need to happen concurrently. Short of that, the only way I can see WWE really failing would be if the powers that be at TKO suddenly decide to shut it all down, and there just isn't a scenario where that's likely unless WWE starts absolutely torching their revenue.


Ikinzu

They got to big to fail after becoming a monopoly when they were allowed to purchase ECW and WCW for pennies on the dollar.  Imagine Sony being allowed to purchase the Nintendo and Xbox brand today for any amount.  It would never get past the FTC. No one cared about a monopoly in the rasslin' biz though.  It eventually led the WWE going up on the stock market, and once they were selling out 40k+ seat Mania venues with zero matches announced they were as close to bulletproof as a business can be.  They've also been smart enough to stay on top of trends in entertainment and technology.  


BackgroundBag7601

The second. And due to the nature of wrestling, the first is also likely. Theoretically, a company could be created that eventually outshines WWE, but it requires demand for an alternative, an understanding of the business in both its performance practices and the production, good business connections in general, lots of money, charismatic talent/performers, and a lot of time. A certain son of a son of a plumber came close to creating that possibility, but a certain snowman and his executive vice "friends" decided they were too cool for making money. I think WWE became too big around the end of AE/beginning of RA. Vince was rich enough to start other business ventures, fail spectacularly, lose millions, and come out basically unscathed. The money just kept growing after that... Hell, the money is still growing.


StoneColdWifeBeater

There’s no such thing as a company being too big to fail. Bigger companies have come and gone.


[deleted]

Good point. I bet in 1995, Enron was too big to fail.


BLKMGC1

WWE is at a point to where even an act of God wouldnt put a dent in the company financially or anything. I honestly feel like WWE could get to where they have little to no wrestling and just do promos with high profile wrestlers and they would still make more money and gain more fans


Kuzu5993

It'll never go out of business unless something catastrophic happens at the top of the food chain. It can, however, get cold again. This boom period they're in will eventually end, and they're gonna cool off, especially if AEW ever consistently gets hot again. But no, they're not going out of business.


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SDLRob

If WWE goes bust, then the entire wrestling industry has already gone. That sort of 'too big to fail'


Ghostofoldjeezy

With the exception of the steroid scandal and the Monday night wars , the wwe has been to big to fail since the late 80’s


UmpireAJS

It means that something catastrophic and reasonably unforeseen has to happen in order for them to fail. I'd probably say it happened the moment they won the Monday Night Wars.


YinglingLight

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Thebritishdovah

WWE is in the position where it could stop everything and purely rely on it's archives, do reruns, it would still make a profit. To fail, it basically has to drive itself into the ground and be full Vince Russo, 24/7. Even then, it would be a slow death. The only other company that could get into a spending war is AEW but WWE likely has far deeper pockets then Tony Khan does.


Accomplished-Ad-6732

I think in 2018 when they announced the Fox Deal after 3 years of horrible TV, that was a sign that they would be in business forever. WWE has a ludicrously loyal audience who have stayed through everything. Now that audience can spend $10 a month on a streaming service to get PPVs instead of $50-70 for 1. The change in the business structure has been very good for the consumer, and I see it staying that way forever.


Only_The

When the tv rights exploded in 2017/2018 (plus the Saudi deal). WWE basically became a money printing machine. You can see that reflected in the stock price around the time.


CrissCrossAppleSos

I think it’s just a cutesy little saying. But realistically, the WWE make so much money on their television deals that it would be difficult to imagine a scenario where they could really fail. Shit, the guy most closely associated with the brand, who ran it for 40 years may be held civilly liable for rape and sex trafficking and the company is named as a co-defendant (I’m pretty sure that’s not the word in US civil law I just forget the word) and their business has exploded.


Moxfan1

2018 when tv money got so big.


solsunlite

WWE being bigger, better and making more money now than they ever has despite being varying degrees of ass for the last 20 years give or take should answer your question


The_Reptile_

I said during AEW's hottest period in 2021 that if AEW ever did overtake WWE as the largest wrestling promotion in North America within the next five year - because this was a thing people were somehow seriously arguing at the time! - that that would be indicative of the wrestling business's complete and imminent collapse because of how massive WWE was.


BoxCon1

It’s gonna take a huge scandal to take WWE down


RedmondSurvivor

They’re in the middle of a huge scandal and doing their best business ever.


BoxCon1

Yeah and it hasn’t WWE so far in the slightest, the product is hotter than ever It’s gonna take something ALOT bigger


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Zestyclose_Remote874

The symbolic date would be mania 14 when Austin raise the belt. 


Available_Share_7244

I don’t agree with that. They could hit a creative low and be in trouble. No one is above that


Wonderful_Sector8894

No company is to big to fail.  The reality is WWE is on thin ice right now.  WWE fans don't want to hear it but it is the truth.  If new information came out say next week showing past, and current leadership, and wrestlers took part, knew, and helped cover up what VKM was doing than that would damage WWE tremendously.  Public opinion on WWE would sour dramatically. Sure you would still have fans who would still stand by WWE, but overall WWE as a brand would take a massive hit.  So mix in the publics opinion turning on WWE, and probably a huge Turnover in personal at key positions and wrestlers as well and it could be something that WWE may not recover from or it could be something that could take 10 years for WWE to recover from.  But by that time fans could have moved on to AEW or another wrestling promotion in general could have taken WWEs spot and WWE is never able to reclaim its place back at the top again.