This Is The Most Expensive Mistake WWE Ever Made

This relentlessly familiar teat-squeezing approach continues to impact everything. WWE's monopoly allowed them to repeat so much, and this was intensified by the fact they already had your tenner a month. For whatever reason, or a convergence of them - Vince McMahon's lost touch, a latent arrogance, habit, or, simply, the very nature of mass-produced business - WWE now just endlessly promotes the exact same matches with the absolute bare minimum of narrative pretext.

In the most glaring example of many, Apollo Crews has spent more time with MVP in 2020 than hundreds of millions of people have with their loved ones. WWE, its bullsh*t enabled by the Network, entered after 2014 an anti-premium age at both the price point and product quality. Build, anticipation, drama: all of it sank into a direct debit sinkhole.

The Network also shaped WWE's overarching strategy. Former Co-President George Barrios, who dreamt up much of this vision, called it "super-serving". The idea, with WWE diminished in the wider market that had itself become atomised, was to hone in on the loyal hardcore fan and extract more money from them, rather than attempt to appeal to a mass audience.

What was envisioned as lashings of multifarious fan service soon echoed the old Simpsons joke, in which Satan serves Homer the ironic punishment of an endless donut supply. Except, in this analogy, WWE fans became bloated at the constant rematches, stagnant narrative developments, and Jinder Mahal. Moreover, this was always a myopic approach that ran counterintuitive to the key revenue stream of TV rights.

CONT'D...(3 of 6)