Don't Cry Adam... It'll be alright.

[Dolfanar]

[Quote] WWE to go Worldwide The new CFO of WWE, Michael Selick, revealed in Financial Week that the company is exploring the possibility of establishing separate WWE promotions running full-time in separate international markets. If everything went ahead it would go so far as to include separate TV tapings and storylines for each region, turning WWE from an overseas novelty into a local promotion. Things are still in the preliminary stages but Vince McMahon has discussed it in detail with Stephanie, John Laurinaitis and others in the inner circle. The territories mentioned include a 'Pacific' region covering Japan, South Korea, China and Australia, a 'Hispanic' territory for Puerto Rico, Mexico and South America, and a European territory, with perhaps a Russian one at a later date. Meanwhile, in the USA, there would be two touring brands, most likely Raw and ECW, with Smackdown becoming the Hispanic brand as it is already well established in the market. Big pay increases would be given to senior agents and creative team members to move themselves and their families overseas, with potential performance bonuses depending on how well business goes. It would start off with a TV executive producer with experience of the region working closely with one agent and one writer who would be running the territory. There would also be a crew of wrestlers, who would also be expected to move their families overseas. Paul Heyman's name has actually been mentioned in connection to the Pacific region. Shane McMahon, along with Selick, is working on a business plan for the venture, which remains in its formative stages. Potential drawbacks include the cost of producing WWE calibre shows, around $500,000 per week, and how TV stations in areas like Mexico would respond to the price. There is also the danger of international markets already beginning to get overexposed. Recent Japanese tours have not performed particularly well, there were concerns over the number of Australian tours, while advances for the next batch of Mexican dates have been well below expectations. Also, though WWE can get away with charging high prices for their shows at the moment as it is a novelty, doing so repeatedly would not help when taking on promotions like CMLL or AAA. If it did come to pass then a lot of new wrestlers would of course be hired, as there would be a minimum of five brands. They are looking at promoting each market using both established WWE stars and top babyfaces based on ethnic backgrounds. Carlito, Mistico and Mysterio would be assigned to the Hispanic brand as top stars, they would look for a top Asian and Australian babyface, and guys like Regal, Finlay, Harry Smith and Paul Burchill could be assigned major roles in Europe. They would also likely raid the local markets in Japan and Mexico, whilst bringing back more of the '80s and '90s stars to make up the numbers. The only sure thing about the creative team members is that neither Stephanie McMahon nor Brian Gerwitz would work internationally. Gerwitz would likely become the chief writer of the USA brands, while Stephanie would hire more TV writers with Hollywood experience. Word is that the interntaionaly territories would be handled by Shane, with Vince concentrating on domestic business, though many have suggested that Vince's personality means he would want to be involved everywhere anyway. credit: wrestling observer newsletter [/Quote] 5-6 brands. So Adam, this will be in 1.5 right? [Quote] In unrelated news, wrestling Sim creator goes mad, kills seven. [/Quote]

[Undertaker666]

lol :D

[panix04]

:D Highly comical! But if they do go through with the proposed change's im not sure seperate brands would be the way to handle things. It would be far too complicated, ideally you'd want a system were you only have to run one 'brand' if you so choose.

[NickC13573]

IDK, if this really does happen I think this would be great for TEW, because it almost force adam to code a type of umbrella system.

[Goldenskillz]

I dunno how it would force him to TEW is his and he can do what he wants dont mean to sound lick a beatch just saying). Also i dont think that this happening is good for any1 really (my opinion maybe i dont understand it properly but thats how i feel).

[infinitywpi]

Or, for more fun, rewrite the whole 'promotion' system... now, you work for a 'Company', and a 'Company' can own multiple promotions (regular, touring, developmental, etc). A Company can shuttle people around between the promotions it owns, but each promotion is a separate thing in terms of prestige, popularity, etc.

[TravisL]

Okay people learn to read...what they are doing is looking to establish new PROMOTIONS internationally under the WWE banner. Not brands.

[Undertaker666]

5-6 brands would be ridiculous in TEW terms. If the WWE split were to happen (unlikely I feel, but could be interesting) then it sounds like they'd be seperate entities anyway so it'd just be one company per region, with maybe RAW as the parent company of all the others.

[panix04]

[QUOTE=TravisL;207126]Okay people learn to read...what they are doing is looking to establish new PROMOTIONS internationally under the WWE banner. Not brands.[/QUOTE] I think we can all read Travis, i just think there is a lot of ambiguity surrounding the term's Brand and promotion.

[Blackman]

[QUOTE=infinitywpi;207124]Or, for more fun, rewrite the whole 'promotion' system... now, you work for a 'Company', and a 'Company' can own multiple promotions (regular, touring, developmental, etc). A Company can shuttle people around between the promotions it owns, but each promotion is a separate thing in terms of prestige, popularity, etc.[/QUOTE] That'd be so awesome. But I'll settle if you're able to buy existing promotions and take over wrestling as it is. Moeha!

[djthefunkchris]

[QUOTE=infinitywpi;207124]Or, for more fun, rewrite the whole 'promotion' system... now, you work for a 'Company', and a 'Company' can own multiple promotions (regular, touring, developmental, etc). A Company can shuttle people around between the promotions it owns, but each promotion is a separate thing in terms of prestige, popularity, etc.[/QUOTE] That's a pretty good idea actually. This could do something for historic mods as well...

[Goldenskillz]

The main prob i see with loads of little "WWE" promotions around is that it would destroy other little wrestling promotions(the ones were wrestlers make their starts) then where would the "non wwe" style people get their experience...basacially we would see only ppl with the WWE look given any actual wrestling training if this happened. Sure the bigg wrestling promotions like TNA and ROH would survive but they aint gonna take a risk on someone who has never wrestled a match. Thats my theory on it.

[D-Lyrium]

Who said anything about local promotions dissapearing? Just because the WWE exist, doesn't mean there aren't any little promotions in America. Or even the Tri-State region. So why would a Japanese "mini-WWE" as you call it, have any impact on little promotions in Japan? Or the European one in Europe? (ok, so that's the only one of the three that might ¬_¬).

[sebsplex]

Lol, the WWE can't even run three brands particularly well. In TEW terms, meh I'd personally just have them as seperate promotions and give them some relationship to the three-brand WWE... not that I can see this actually happening and/or succeeding.

[Goldenskillz]

To be honest i thought there would be a few "mine 'E's" spread about in each country not just one thats why. Its my fault for not reading properly.

[Wildcat]

If Vince wants to kill the E, this is the best way to do it. All this would do is oversaturate the market and stretch the talent base even further than it already is... they can't even get enough talent on ECW to keep it from being the same show every week how are they going to do that with 5 promotions/brands.

[D-Lyrium]

Vince's solution to everything these days is to make more stuff instead of repairing the gaping holes in the existing stuff. He's been doing it for a while. There's even talk of ECW Tag Team titles now, despite the fact that they've barely got enough teams for one division let alone three.

[Guest The Aussie]

I don't see how this will kill the WWE, It's just like the NWA, all companies related to each other but in different areas. The Asia-pacific one could focus on more of a pure product, the Mexican one would focus on Lucha and the European and British ones would focus on technical matches. It's simple if you think about it.

[NickC13573]

[QUOTE=Wildcat;207178]If Vince wants to kill the E, this is the best way to do it. All this would do is oversaturate the market and stretch the talent base even further than it already is... they can't even get enough talent on ECW to keep it from being the same show every week how are they going to do that with 5 promotions/brands.[/QUOTE] I agree, in principle. If Vince does ALL that expansion at ONCE and it doesnt work, we might finally see the END to WWE. However, if he does it over a 10-15 year period then it might work.

[shipshirt]

It would be interesting but I can't see it happening. It would take a major monetary investment and at least 5-10 years to get ONE promotion up and running properly. Not to mention that each region has it's own culture and style that needs to be catered to...you can't just plop down WWE Style in Japan and expect it to work. Vince doesn't exactly strike me as a student of the game anymore and also is a person who likes to have his fingers in all of the pies (like sebsplex mentioned...he couldn't even leave ECW alone and let it be different) so the odds of pulling this off are slim, IMHO.

[djthefunkchris]

[QUOTE=shipshirt;207209]It would be interesting but I can't see it happening. It would take a major monetary investment and at least 5-10 years to get ONE promotion up and running properly. Not to mention that each region has it's own culture and style that needs to be catered to...you can't just plop down WWE Style in Japan and expect it to work. Vince doesn't exactly strike me as a student of the game anymore and also is a person who likes to have his fingers in all of the pies (like sebsplex mentioned...[B]he couldn't even leave ECW alone and let it be different[/B]) so the odds of pulling this off are slim, IMHO.[/QUOTE] Well, In my opinion ECW is alot better NOW then it was BEFORE (Not talking about the original, I mean the WWE ECW). Yeah, it's alot different, it's more wrestling then anything on that one right now, or at least they present it in a way that it "Feels" that way. I Don't see a problem with this expansion... I mean they are at the top right now HERE... ECW Is the number one show on Sci Fi, Raw is the number one show on USA, and Smackdown is definately the number one show on the CW. So why not expand, they are all three pretty much success's. ME or YOU saying they need work is just talk, that doesn't mean that WWE and obviously not the networks each brand is assigned to thinks that way. The talk about WWE losing steam has been ONLY talk. Every show there is has lost just as much over the year's, far as viewer's. I said before I feel this is because there is like 200 more channels to watch now. IF I was a betting man, I would say the WWE has constantly been making a bigger profit every year, and last year was more then the year 2000 (for example). WWE can afford to start all of them up at once if they wanted, they could do it two or three times over, and if it fails, would still have ECW, Smackdown and RAW to fall back on, and could pull out no different then when they tried the Professional Football thing. They have the money to lose if they want. What do they have, like two or three training promotions they send their talent to here? What is three or four more everywhere else? Just because they go to Japan, or Europe, or whereever, doesn't mean that the talent in the area is going to automatically be in the WWE.... If it was that easy to get into WWE, I would think the couple that post here that are true wrestler's, would already be in at least OVW or something. Besides, Don't you think a wrestler selected by WWE to be included in this would feel "Lucky" not like it's hurting them. I for one don't believe this is going to happen, but giving the benefit of the doubt, I would definately be glad if it did. This would really improve their bussiness, improve the talent pool they have to work with, and improve the competition wherever they go. WWE is a multibillion dollar company, that makes PROFITS every single year... even when the WCW was beating them they were making a profit, while WCW was losing money. If nothing else, realise that WWE MAKES money. They can afford it, lol. And yes... I think any network in any of those countries would be totally out of their mind not to "automatically" give them a spot, and I mean a good one. They prooved in less then a year to Sci-Fi they could be number one for them. They don't want two hours because WWE doesn't want two hours.. SciFI already gave them as many hours as they want. Boom!! ThaT's the end of my rant. Just realise what it is, not what it isn't. The babble that goes on about WWE hurting and stuff is a bunch of Hogwash, that has been said over and over, but untrue (just look it up). Heck, Every PPV they have sells out in a matter of hours, not days.

[PeterHilton]

I don't see any reason why the CornellVerse should be a direct reflection of everything that happens in the real world. The game-world itself is playable and entertaining and the in-game logic is strong. So while this kind of global marketing would be cool, I'm not sure if its "necessary." As for the idea itself: it'd be interesting to see if the WWE could/would modify it's style to mesh better with the local promotions fansbase (a Japanese-WWE with more of a Japanese style, etc..) or if they are just going to do the sports-entertainment thing on a global basis. Not sure how that sort of thing would play out. If I were a shareholder, I'd be absolutely thrilled, because this shows that they are trying to create new revenue streams without waiting for the "upswing" that old timey wrestling types like to talk about. The American wrestling market is played out? Let's create some new markets.

[djthefunkchris]

Exactly. Love that post. They already prooved their willing to spend millions without a guarrentee, with them branching off into Movie's. What I think tends to happen around here, is since everyone is so "used" to Vince being the only person to put blame on, and always give good things that happen credit to someone else other then Vince... I think there is the overall thoughts that Vince is doing every single thing all by himself, and that there is no way one person could do that. It's true now... Vince is not Directing the movie's, for example... he's just backing them "Producing". He's not writing them, nor is he acting in them, although I think he would like to at some point. Just like with the three brands right now. He's not the only person that makes decisions, and he cannot possibly "Oversee" everything that's going on, or going to happen... Remember, he has lines to memmorize as well. Vince want's to highlight new wrestler's all the time, he has said so on a few different occassions... so the missuse of the new guys isn't exactly something he is "Making" anyone do. They just have to figure out HOW to do them and the one's they are workin' on now, without it looking like a mess, or giving us a headache trying to keep up with it. I sincerely doubt he writes the dialogue's, although I'm sure he can say "NO" whenever he wants to of course. There is just a ton of people that work for WWE that don't include Wrestler's as it is. These people are going to do this, not just Vince or any other one person. Delegating authority to the right individuals will be the hardest task they have to do.

[Ironmike]

[QUOTE=sebsplex;207147]Lol, the WWE can't even run three brands particularly well..[/QUOTE] How true. I think 2 brands was the most they could handle they should never have bothered with thier 'ECW' brand. Spreading thier stars into 6 different brands would make thier shows even worse than 'ECW' unless RAW just keeps the main U.S. talent.

[Dolfanar]

In WWE-Corporate (and most company) speak, a "brand" is a subdivision of a company. WWE will still own, and control every single one of these companies. Don't confuse "Brand" with "franchise" or "Partner" (Read: Working Relationship). This isn't like OVW (Owned by Danny Davis) or DSW (Jody Hamilton), WWE will own, and control everything (if from a far). If we could have a relationship "Is a brand of" as an unbreakable relationship that gives power to decide on Title changes and important decisions, then yeah... otherwise a brand is the only way to simulate this. Ofcourse currently TEW doesn't even come close to modeling development territotries (The equivalent of a Baseball Sim that doesn't do AAA call-ups), so obviously Adam doesn't have to "do" anything. Oh, btw I think this is a potential money loser. WWE already generates international revenue from TV, and Charges a huge premium in markets with less disposable income as a novelty attraction. as mentioned in my OP... WWE will NOT get away with charging 5x what CMLL or AAA charge in Mexico for long...