10 Things We Learned From Ryback's First Podcast
2. Road Expenses Could Exceed $150,000 Per Year
Speaking of Ryan's finances, the Big Guy revealed that his road and travel expenses could exceed $150,000 per year!
This played in to Ryan's explanation that, while $1.5 million may sound like a tonne of money, once you account for those travel expenses, it makes the deal worth significantly less. This is why Reeves demanded that his hotels and rental cars be covered by the company if he were to re-sign with WWE in 2016.
While WWE does provide airline tickets to the talent, this is the extent of what the promotion pays for while their talents are on the road. As mentioned previously, Pat Buck even chronicles how most independent promoters pay for the big name talents' travel expenses as part of their deal to appear at the local indy show. The implication is that if these small-time promotions can afford to do it and still profit, why can't the juggernaut that is WWE do so, too?
Well the fact is, they can, but they don't need to.
It's the same reason why there is no union in sports-entertainment and that is because WWE has operated in a certain way for so long without it that any talent caught attempting to go against the grain would likely be terminated and potentially blackballed. WWE can mould contracts the way they do and get away with it.
It's an unfortunate nature of the beast that is professional wrestling with WWE at the helm.