Once upon a time, WWE lived and died by its ratings. Caught in a war with WCW, the perception of whether or not WWE was on top was mostly based on the performance of Monday Night Raw. In fact, deep into Nitro's 83-week winning streak, USA almost cancelled WWE programming. Today, things are different. Though WWE isn't happy when Raw ratings reach new lows (and they do occasionally resort to desperation booking to spike numbers), the company's primary worry when it comes to television is how much they get paid by the networks on which they broadcast. WWE's most recent contract - with NBC Universal, the parent company of the USA Network - wasn't as lucrative as Vince McMahon would have liked, but it was signed and made official, and it'll be years before the next negotiations happen. Even more troublesome is the fact that the company no longer needs to sell Pay-Per-Views. During WWE's most popular period, they built up to huge matches on PPV, then got hundreds of thousands of fans to spend at least $30 a month to see said bouts. Today, all "special events" are broadcast on the WWE Network, which is slowly gaining subscribers. As a result, there's no urgency to make fans spend money on monthly events, or even make said events good. The company's modern business model has eliminated the incentive to produce quality programming.
Scott Fried is a Slammy Award-winning* writer living and working in New York City. He has been following/writing about professional wrestling for many years and is a graduate of Lance Storm's Storm Wrestling Academy. Follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/scottfried.
*Best Crowd of the Year, 2013
