During a recent edition of his Ryback TV podcast, former WWE Superstar Ryback commented on WWE taking over the social media accounts of all of their talent, and more. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On WWE taking over its talents’ Twitch accounts: “I would be really curious to know what that cut is gonna be because we know the percentages in WWE are oftentimes heavily favorited to the promoter, to Vince. Now you’re dealing with social media and a lot of these guys have built up their followings on there. And you’re gonna count it against their downside? My thing is then their contract should be restructured and everyone should get a raise then based off of this prior, just if they’re gonna keep it this way. Now they’re taking their revenue on that and they’re counting it towards their downside, which they’re gonna pay them less on other things now and they’re gonna increase their bottom line. This is greed at its finest.”
“I understand protecting brands, but the talent – the talent all have a choice. If everyone just said ‘We’re not doing this,’ they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. The problem is, that’s not what’s going on. In all fairness, if you have new people starting out you’re gonna do what you’re told – you don’t have a lot of power or a lot of money…..it’s a frustrating thing. I’m glad I’m not involved in it or part of it quite frankly. That just goes to show you how screwed up everything is.”
On how WWE tried to do the same to him when he was in the company: “WWE, when I was there, they brought us all into a room and tried to force everybody to sign over their social media accounts, which I got up and I left. They tried to track me down multiple times and forced me to sign it and I never did. I knew I was leaving already. I don’t know the exact specifics on what control it gave them. It essentially allowed them to go into anybody’s accounts at any time and have full control over the account, which I thought was completely ridiculous. Now, this is a further step and you’re dealing directly with as far as money. I would love to see the percentages. I think the contracts – that’s gonna be a real talk that needs to happen in renegotiating contracts to incorporate social media into revenue.”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
