Summary of Tom Zenk on Wrestling Obeserver Live Friday 25 May
Transcript follows later. Some of the main points -
- "Vince's bottom line is in trouble – WWF hasn’t been able to broaden its business base outside wrestling
- Take a look at his stock graph –WWF shares are trading in a tight $13-14 band.
- CBS Market Watch said they see early signs that some major institutions could be preparing to ditch their shares
- The big problem for Vince is that his business plan is supposed to broaden his base - to 50% wrestling and 50% other business. He tried to broaden his business base with the XFL and it failed. Apparently, NBC pulled the plug on Vince – the decision to dump XFL came just two days after NBC named Andrew Lack their new president.
- Apart from this week’s 2 main shows - WWF booking has been getting stale – and, outside the Benoit, Jericho and Kurt Angle, Vince has no well developed / upcoming tier of new talent. At the same time, in his upper tier -
Austin has a bad neck
Undertaker is finished
Rock is making movies
Triple H is injured and out for 6 months
Big Show isn’t cutting it
Foley has bad knees
Kane – dead man
- WWF's core business, wrestling, is generally on a slide. To prevent his big investors off loading his stock, Vince needs to pull off another coup, urgently.
- Vince is a risk taker - and it’s time for a big gesture – he should spend up big on Goldberg and the other WCW brand names to help get him a TV slot - and bring on the WCW angle as fast as possible, to protect his core business.
- what's $4 or $6 million (Goldberg's reputed salary) to a billionaire - if it helps Vince keep his investors on board.
- Goldberg as the MAIN EVENT
- Think of Goldberg vs Austin
- Goldberg vs Triple H
- Goldberg and The Rock vs Triple H and Austin.
- Vince should do with WCW - everything he can’t do with WWF- shock TV – cutting edge wrestling with Heyman booking it. Grab people’s attention again and regrow interest in the business."
- Info on WWF Ownership
- Insider: 88% (Includes Viacom)
- Over the last 6 months: one insider sell (Viacom) ; $2.5 million worth of WWF shares sold off by Viacom
- Institutional: 14% (116% of float) (97 institutions)
- Net Inst. Buying: 161.0K shares (+1.60%)
- Largest shareholders in WWF
- General Electric Company 2,307,693 shares - $30.6million
- Capital Guardian Trust Company 1,409,750 - $18.7million
- Citigroup Inc. 1,133,976 shares --- $15 million
- State Street Research & Management Company - Other 917,400 - $12.1 million
- Chartwell Investment Partners 730,000 - $9.6 million
- Axe-Houghton Associates, Inc. 701,045 - $9.3 million
- Eagle Asset Management, Inc. 395,400 - $5.2 million
- Barclays Bank Plc 229,040 - $3.0 million
- Munder Capital Management, Inc. 177,694 - $2.3 million
- Westcap Investors LLC 166,070 $2.2 million
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