Vince McMahon has said many times that he is not in the wrestling business, he's in the entertainment business. The competition for WWE is not other wrestling companies, it's Disney, Marvel, and sleep.
WWE has been at the forefront of sports entertainment through branding deals and marketing along with business model changes like taking the company public and the introduction of the WWE Network.
Speaking on Honest Offense with Eric Cervone, Kane discussed the entrepreneurial genius of Vince McMahon.
"You look at pay-per-view, if you go to www.payperview.com, you get redirected to WWE. Vince did not invent pay-per-view, but you can make an argument that he was the guy that perfected it. He was ahead of the curve there. We had a huge presence on the internet in 1995, before anyone really knew what the internet was. We were doing chat rooms and all sorts of stuff. Then, you look at the app that came out, which was kind of not great, but he recognized before a lot of people did that folks were migrating away from their TV and to their computer and now they are migrating from their computer to a handheld device. When the app came out, we were like, 'we're behind the curve.' The reason for that was, they were thinking about WWE Network, which originally was going to be a cable network, and then he decided 'we're going put it online, move all the pay-per-views to a monthly subscription,' we all thought he was crazy for that because pay-per-view made up half the companies revenue. He was completely changing the business model. I remember, the stock sunk, 'Vince McMahon is an idiot,' people were talking about suing. Now, the company is making more money than ever. Vince is not a huge technophile, I don't even know if he can login to his own email, but he doesn't have to. All he has to do is see where the trends are going and he gets ahead of them, everyone thinks he's crazy, sure enough, he's making all the money," said Kane.
Kane concluded by saying, "That's his true brilliance. He can figure out where entertainment, technology, and delivery is going and he ends up getting there first. It's like he has a weird ESP about it."
WWE has a goal of generating $100 million annually via brand partnerships. The company made close to $20 million in advertising-related revenue the first three months of the year.
When he's not making cameo appearances on WWE television, Kane, using his real name Glenn Jacobs, also the Mayor of Knox County, Tennessee.
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