OK, here me out on this one. This isnt so much as a well-known occurrence in WWE history, as much as it is my own theory on what happened in 2008. In the early half of 2008, the WWE was still TV-14, and business was starting to slow down. At the same time, the United States was in the middle of a serious financial crisis, the likes of which had not been experienced since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The housing bubble burst which led to a housing crisis; large international banks like Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 12 bankruptcy, and a crisis in the American auto industry, all led to a significant economic downturn for the United States. The point is, when the financial crisis hit, everyone was hit hard, and the WWE was no exception. With unemployment increasing and spending habits were becoming more conservative, and people had to start being more careful with what they bought, including WWE merchandise, tickets and Pay-Per-Views. So, to increase the number of potential viewers, the WWE changed its TV rating from TV-15 to TV-PG. It all comes down to demographic change. The WWE, having catered to an older audience throughout the late 1990s and most of the 2000s, couldnt make enough money to sustain growth and profit by continuing to appeal to the shrinking demographic of 18-34 year old males. Wild economic change and instability on Wall Street led to less concern for entertainment on the part of families and more concern on financial stability. Increased competition, especially from the UFC, took away some of the WWE's target audience. Fewer jobs and smaller paychecks meant fewer people could spend on WWEs products. Not even the most die-hard WWE fans at the time could keep WWE afloat; they needed to branch out to a wider market in order to re-gain popular appeal. The WWE simply needed to cater to a wider audience: wrestling couldnt simply remain as something for violence-loving teenage and adult males. They had to branch out to children, who love superheroes, and women, who were once a marginalized fan base. Though many people complain about the WWEs new image, especially how John Cena is a walking merchandise advertisement (among other things) and how some WWE stars shamelessly plug wweshop.com, the WWE is doing these things almost out of necessity. It is appealing to a larger, younger demographic to secure financial deals and get sponsors, which in turn, keep WWE afloat. As of this writing, the WWE is still officially PG in its programming, and it remains quite stable. However, there are other financial problems that the WWE is facing. If the dirtsheets are to be believed, some Superstars are complaining about payouts, WWE Network subscriptions are low, TV deals are lower than expected, and Vince McMahon himself is said to have lost $350 million in one day. All in all, it seems clear that each one of these unexpected events changed the WWE significantly in one way or another. Thanks for reading. Be sure to check out WhatCulture's WWE section for more interesting articles.
Alexander Podgorski is a writer for WhatCulture that has been a fan of professional wrestling since he was 8 years old. He loves all kinds of wrestling, from WWE and sports entertainment, to puroresu in Japan.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Queen's University in Political Studies and French, and a Master's Degree in Public Administration. He speaks English, French, Polish, a bit of German, and knows some odd words and phrases in half a dozen other languages.
