The days of Stamford, CT being the sole home to WWE may need to come to an end. WWE has spent a lot of money getting the WWE Network up and running. They've been hiring consultants like media rights negotiator Chris Bevilacqua. When you're going this fast, you're likely to spend too much and get too little. Soon they'll have an excellent opportunity to evaluate whether they're getting the best quality work for the price they're paying. As part of the larger cost-effective evaluation, WWE needs to look at whether the company should continue to be centralized in Connecticut? To better run international expansions (including the possibility of creating truly international programming), they should beef up their international office based in the UK, their biggest non-US Market) . There would be benefits to to expanding a "developmental feeder program" in international locations (such as Lance Storm's training school in Canada) so that additional talent from around the world can be scouted early on and trained without having to wait months for visas. With all of the focus on social media, shouldn't they be working more closely with Silicon Valley? That would be a better California location instead of LA's WWE Films division. The company is based in a struggling state that has turned into one of the worst performing economies. Now that Linda McMahon has hopefully moved past her dreams of serving in Congress, maybe the McMahon family will seriously consider moving the the WWE empire out of being so tightly centered around the Northeast. Special thanks to Adam Woolhouse, Tom Czarniak, Adam Litz and Gurjit Sidhu for feedback and suggestions in writing this article.
I'm a professional wrestling analyst, an improviser and an avid NES gamer. I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota and I'm working on my first book (#wrestlenomics). You can contact me at chris.harrington@gmail.com or on twitter (@mookieghana)
