3. The TV People Got It Wrong
An alternative argument is that WWE's loss of value is nothing to do with Vince McMahon, nothing to do with his product, but simply a case of short sighted stupidity from the corporate networks. This wasn't Vince's fault, he did everything he could, but the external forces who didn't understand WWE didn't have the intelligence to identify a valuable brand when they seen one. That led to WWE getting an undervalued new tv deal which ultimately led to the stock crash and Vince being wiped out to the tune of $842 million. So was it down to stupidity of others outside of WWE? Well, let's look it, ESPN just gave the MLS a rise from $18 million to $90 million for a product which averages only 220,000 viewers. WWE in contrast averages 4.32 million viewers for live Raw - yet they only got $142 million from NBC and didn't manage to appeal to any of the big Networks? They didn't manage to get a significant rights increase when something nowhere near as popular just won a huge increase? This looks like naivety and snobbery on the part of the television people. They don't want to associate themselves with pro wrestling simply because it's pro wrestling. When something is proven in popularity and you still pass it over to pile money into something less popular, that's stupidity, that's walking away from a captive audience and money. The reason Vince lost so much money wasn't so much his own actions, but the inactions of others outside of his company.