Pinning Down Success: WWE’s McMahon Rings Up Deals
By R. Thomas Umstead -- Multichannel News, 1/28/2007 7:00:00 PM
Linda McMahon may not be as well known in the wrestling ring as her brawny husband Vince, but she just might be the muscle that holds multibillion dollar World Wrestling Entertainment together.
As CEO of the famed wrestling outfit, the 58-year-old McMahon is the one pinning down major television deals for the organization like the one reached in the mid-1980s with USA Network, or the various multimillion dollar merchandising deals for WWE action figures and other paraphernalia. Her intuition, business smarts and perseverance has helped build WWE into one of the most successful and recognizable entertainment brands and garnered her Multichannel News’ recognition as a Wonder Woman.
“Linda has always been a wonderful and powerful force to be reckoned with,” said USA Network president Bonnie Hammer. “Vince is the guy that’s visually out there so much in terms of in the ring and on the stage and is so directly associated with WWE. But I have to say Linda is a powerhouse behind the scenes. She’s smart as can be, she’s fair, she’s honest and she’s classy.”
Indeed, while husband Vince is often seen on air dropping elbow slams on big, hulking wrestlers in the ring, Linda is the one rubbing elbows with the public company’s financial investors. And she doesn’t mind operating outside the ropes and behind the scenes.
“Vince and I have always been a team — we were really growing the business together, but he’s clearly the entrepreneur and he’s really the guy with the vision,” said McMahon. “My job was to execute that vision, and to cross the t’s and dot the i’s. And I think we made a great team in doing that.”
Actually the two have been a tag team since meeting as teens in the early 1960s in a New Bern, N.C., church where Linda grew up. After marrying in 1966, Linda attended East Carolina University and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Education. At the same time Vince — who had yet to get involved in his father’s Capitol Wrestling Corp. — earned a business degree, also from East Carolina.
After college, the McMahons moved to Washington, D.C., where Linda worked as a paralegal at law firm Covington & Burling. “I actually started as a receptionist but then moved into the probate division and really was trained as a paralegal,” she said. “It gave me an incredible background of understanding intellectual property rights.”
Such talents would soon come in handy. In 1982, three years after establishing the live event promotion company Titan Sports, the McMahon’s bought out assets of Capitol Wrestling, taking control of the World Wrestling Federation and beginning to develop what would become an unrivaled pro wrestling empire.
Hoping to take the organization from regional to national status, Linda McMahon negotiated and implemented the first licensing deal in the wrestling industry with toy company LJN, which produced the WWF line of action figures. She also managed the development of WWF publications, and at the start, wrote most of the articles. In 2002, WWF became World Wrestling Entertainment.
The company’s big break came when Linda negotiated a national television deal with USA Network. “I was the legal liaison and became very involved in negotiating the television contracts for the company as we not only expanded syndication but then looked more into the world of cable,” she said. “I’m not sure I had the vision at the time to understand how big it was going to be, but at the time cable was clearly gaining ground.”
Indeed, USA Network and eventually the pay-per-view business helped to catapult the organization to incredible ratings and revenue heights. The WWE’s weekly Raw telecast has consistently ranked among the top-rated cable shows for two decades.
After leaving USA for Spike TV in 2000, Raw returned to USA in 2005 and helped the network become ad-supported cable’s primetime ratings champion in 2006.
Meanwhile, for 20 years the WWE’s PPV events — especially its annual Wrestlemania franchise — have served as one of the transaction business’s biggest revenue draws.
“Clearly cable was a driving force in having a fixed time slot on Monday nights for so many years to grow the brand and to have two hours of time and to have successful marketing promotion,” she said.
McMahon’s stature within the company also grew. She eventually assumed the day-to-day operations as president in 1993. In 2000, she was named CEO.
But it wasn’t all business for McMahon during the early years of the WWE. While Vince barnstormed the country producing as many as 1,000 live wrestling events a year, Linda was mostly home-based and took care of their two children, Shane and Stephanie.
“Vince was on the road, he was producing television and we had groups produce the live events, but that wasn’t where my expertise was needed,” she said. “Mine was in the overall administration strategy and more or less on the business side, so I really didn’t need to travel around the country very much, as Vince was doing. It did give me an advantage with our children that I wouldn’t have had if I had a job that required that I traveled all around the country to grow the business.”
Shane and Stephanie grew up to be integral parts of the WWE business, and have even appeared on camera during big WWE events.
But Linda has for the most part shied away from the boisterous and flamboyant limelight that is the WWE — although she did make an on-camera appearance during last April’s Wrestlemania PPV event. She appeared as herself with Vince, Shane and Stephanie in a backstage segment, providing “moral support” to Vince before his in-ring match against wrestler Shawn Michaels.
“We’ve all been used in the storyline, but we’re not just creating things to wrap around the McMahon family. When it was a good story for me to be involved I was happy to be involved, but if it’s not the right story, then I’m very content in doing what I do,” she said. “I don’t have any delusions of giving up my day job to be a television performer.”
But there’s no doubt she could certainly handle herself in the ring if necessary. As her “outlet” from the rigors of business life, she says she lifts weights and does aerobics three to four times a week.
As for the future, McMahon — who lists as her mentors and influences her mom, as well as USA founder Kay Kopolvitz, Hammer and The CW president Dawn Ostroff — said she doesn’t think the bell will sound on her career at the WWE anytime soon.
“I’m more involved in meeting with investors and analysts and business people and CEOs that are part of the media and entertainment world, so I’m enjoying that shift in the role from the day-to-day operations,” she said. “The company will continue to be one of the leading entertainment companies in the world, developing more and more product not only for television distribution but for the Web and wireless platforms. You’ll see us just continue to grow.”
