Nick Khan has been making the media rounds in this week leading up to WrestleMania Weekend. He’s appeared on any sports/business media outlet to discuss Vince becoming Chairman. or Simple questions about Pat McAfee coming back. if you listen to them, they are the typical business-like responses.
Here he is on Colin Cowherd show talking about Vince and Dana White:
Here is a interesting clip from CNBC about Stephanie McMahon:
I love these CNBC interviews where they go extremely wonk-level into the company. its a great reminder of the fact that WWE is a publicly traded company. In this interview they were discussing the legalization of gambling on professional wrestling matches. You can bet on them on sports books that originate outside of the United States. I have done this, and I can tell you, it’s not the best experience a gambler can have. The odds aren’t the best and can fluctuate, and even close days before an event. Wrestling betters call this event the “smart money wave” because people read into the internet insights and move massive amounts of money to change the odd’s significantly.
Nick Khan believes that the Grammy’s and Oscar’s are betted on, that WWE can be too, and he is wrong. Both of those awarding organizations have PriceWatermanCoopers run the vote, have Deloitte tabulate the results. The results that only a select, small amount of people can vote for. Not only that, but these award show outcomes are not predetermined like in professional wrestling.
Michigan, Colorado and Indiana are the states they want to try this out on. Michigan has catalog reviews every couple of years, when the newer catalog gets approved, it gets pushed to the sportsbooks.
They have registered to operate with Indiana Gaming Commission already, relating to this initiative.
Colorado has a state law, outlawing predetermined outcomes being gambled on.
I don’t think this is possible right now, with Vince McMahon chairman of the company. Rumors will always persist about Vince’s involvement in creative outcomes, and his constant rewrites. I see those constant changes are pushing sports books away from doing this.
In a post-sale, non-Vince McMahon involved WWE company, with Triple H head of creative. I can definitely seeing this happen. During the black and gold NXT days, he was extremely good at booking that far out, only having to re-write shows due to injury.
What States will do you think will go through with it?
