For the record,
Vince McMahon owns 57% of WWE’s Class A stock, and 87% of WWE’s Class B stock,
meaning he has roughly 82% of the voting power. So any outside group buying WWE
stock and trying to influence change may be able to pressure WWE a bit, but
Vince McMahon is pretty much untouchable right now given the number of shares he
owns.
NASDAQ.com has posted a lengthy article on Vince McMahon and
WWE, focusing on the behind-the-scenes operations of the company
including Vince, Triple H, and Stephanie McMahon’s roles. The article also
features a quote from Vince McMahon from today, following WWE’s stock dropping
over 40%. Vince McMahon goes into full “damage control/spin mode” here
trying to make it seem like there are no issues at all. Of course, that’s not
the case and is the reason why Vince is holding an “emergency conference call”
this Monday to try and calm their shareholders down.
“There
should be no confusion on Wall Street as it is extraordinary to have reached
more than 660,000 WWE Network subscribers only 42 days after launch, putting us
on track to reach 1 million subscribers by the end of the year. We feel good
about nearly doubling the value of our four largest TV deals around the
world.”
In the article,
McMahon says WWE Network is “one of the most important things I’ve ever
done.”
The article takes
a somewhat harsh tone towards McMahon’s management style in how he relates to
Wall Street: “The episode highlighted a shortcoming in Mr. McMahon’s
leadership style: While an unbeatable promoter and a creative genius, Mr.
McMahon has at times struggled to master corporate negotiations and dealings
with Wall Street.”
A Wall Street
analyst (Bradley Safalow, chief executive of PAA Research) quoted in the article
also calls WWE Network a “black hole” and said WWE management has a history of
“over-promising and underperforming.”
The article also
talks about Triple H’s role in WWE: “A key to securing the future of
the WWE is characters, says Mr. McMahon. With that in mind, Mr. Levesque, who
spent 20 years in the ring and still sometimes appears as Triple H, was put in
charge of talent. Last summer, he launched a performance center in Orlando,
Florida, where WWE wannabes are put through their paces to see if they have what
it takes.
‘We were doing
nothing to create the future talent,’ says Mr. Levesque, who says he learned 90%
of what he knows from his father-in-law.”
Interestingly
enough, McMahon says in the article that he sees his position being split up
into many different directions after he is gone.
“It
started out as a one-man band but if this is really going to take off and be
everything I think it should be, it can’t be one man’s vision. If I get hit by a
bus, there will be a couple of hiccups along the way but my position would be
split into different directions. We have a lot of creative people and a lot of
executives of a high caliber.”
