1. Wholesale Changes From Top To Bottom
Ultimately it won't be just one area or innovation that Vince McMahon has to make, he will have to employ wholesale changes across his product to get it over as sport. The last few decades have been so lob sided to the entertainment aspect of 'sports entertainment', reversing it will take time and boldness. Everything from a set redesign, character changes and production techniques will need adapting. The matches themselves will need to be more realistic and we will need to see more contests and less microphone segments. Short term these bold changes could hurt WWE, but if you look at Raw, they have actually been bringing these changes in subtly over the last few years. We are already getting more matches and they are already lasting longer. This is the way to go for bringing sports fans in, offering them something they can invest in as contests. As for us wrestling fans, I'm all for a product that focuses more on in-ring action as opposed to comedy sketches. These sort of top to bottom changes which sees the company operate as a sports brand will hopefully long term increase Vince McMahon's profitability. The Simon Cowell era of reality TV and entertainment is over, as Vince himself
says "Given the increasing demand for live, DVR-proof content, we believe the market will value our programming significantly above where we've been in the past."