The words in this article’s title were stated by one CM Punk a mere three years ago. His sardonic wit and knack for shooting from the hip maybe lit the fire under Vince’s ass, because he wheeled and dealed his way back to billionaire status. That was until this past week.
WWE stock took quite the nose dive, from about $20 to about $11 in less than a day, as reported by Forbes. Vince McMahon’s net worth, which was approximately $1.1 billion, now hovers around $750 million. No, the McMahon family won’t be clipping coupons any time soon, but to an ego the size of Vinnie Mac’s, losing a third of one’s fortune must sting badly.
The two standout causes for this are recent network deals not panning out as planned. WWE re-upped their contract with NBC Universal and due to the ratings its two flagship shows brings to USA and SyFy Networks, everyone guessed that they’d see at least a 200% increase with this deal. With NBC Universal low-balling them with just $150 million per year, it appears to be a slap in the face to Vince and his employees.
The other albatross is the WWE Network. Since launching nearly ninety days ago, the service has yet to cross the 700,000 subscriber mark. Given that they need double these numbers just to break even, we can only guess how much scrambling is being done by WWE media relations.
But Vincent Kennedy McMahon faced adversity before. Steroid allegations brought negative publicity in the late 80s-early 90s. Stiff competition in the late 90s nearly cost his empire to collapse. But this tough old businessman has always bounced back. There’s no reason to believe he won’t bounce back from this…with that swagger in his walk that he’s known for.
