subject: The Effects Of WWE And Its Marketing On The Rest Of The Sports World [print this page] The Effects Of WWE And Its Marketing On The Rest Of The Sports World
In the 1980s and the 1990s, a single name has flipped the sports world upside down. This specific brand is the WWE that means World Wrestling Entertainment. In the early 1980s, the company was called the WWF in which the F represented Federation, however , after having a case from the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) the actual name change took place.The name change also meant a change of direction and ever since the name change the word "entertainment" has been prominent everywhere. The company went away from the sport part and decided to dive head first into the entertainment market. This meant that the company still got the best of the sports world as professional wrestlers still joined their ranks, but they also opened a huge gap in the market as the "sport" was now part of the "entertainment" sector and that meant huge revenue options and marketing possibilities. Not only did the company make the right marketing choices with their "entertainment" but they also managed to find characters that would do well in Films, Music vids and Merchandise stores. WWE set up different subsidiaries for all these different activities and that resulted in well received movies like "12 rounds" and "The Marines". They also use their marketing tools to promote albums by artists not related to wrestling and use the "theme tunes" from these artists for their Pay Per View events without paying for the use of the music. These smart WWE marketing tools make them an example for the rest of the sports AND entertainment worldWWE has always had the opportunity to weed out the competition. They just bought the rival company or they "choked" them to death by aggressively marketing in "their" area or demography. In the mid 1990s the company was in severe trouble financially and the way Vince McMahon dealt with the money problems and the loss of talent was remarkable and a tool often used by other entertainment branches till this day. WWE took a step back and began a "new" era with new superstars mocking the former employees now working for different companies as begin "washed up" and "oldies". The new guys wrestling where completely different than the old regular wrestlers and this gave the WWE another huge angle in which they cornered the market.Despite the fact that the company has millions of hardcore fans worldwide, the WWE has decided that it is going more PG than ever before. Storylines become less violent and in ring action is more limited than ever. This "Disney" move was frowned upon by all the hardcore fans, but it gives the company an unlimited amount of new fans under 15 years old. These fans are the ones that buy merchandise like shirts and fake belts as well as tickets to live shows and dolls/action figures. With this move the company has alienated a limited and slowly older getting group of fans, whilst in the meantime collecting a nearly unlimited amount of possible fans as babies keep getting born.Due to this move many other sports companies and organizations are looking into possible similar moves with organizations like the NFL already banning a lot of personal contact to become a more family orientated sport. The same can be said for the MLB which is offering more day games for their younger fans. At the same time individual sports teams are also beginning to move more towards the children with special promotions and offers to bring in the young. These actions have all come directly from the WWE marketing playbook and show how the WWE has an impact on marketing all over the sports world. In the next 5 to 10 years, the team of geniuses at the WWE will need to come up with new plans to go with the times, but over the last 30 years the WWE has shown that IT can singlehandedly SET the time, so all other sports organizations and fringe entertainment events and venues can do worse than following the shrewd steps of the WWE and its CEO Vince McMahon.
