Kane Thought Vince McMahon Moving Pay-Per-Views To WWE Network Was Crazy

Kane recently put over Vince McMahon as always being on the cutting-edge of technology. The WWE Hall of Famer said he was a little skeptical about one major venture, though. He said he thought Vince was crazy when he found out the boss wanted to move pay-per-views to the WWE Network for only $9.99 a month.

Speaking to the Doug Collins Podcast, Kane expressed his shock at the decision. He believed the major PPVs should be their own thing, with the other monthly shows serving as Network content. Ultimately, Vince made the right choice, said the Big Red Machine.

“I think Vince’s real genius, when it comes to his entrepreneurship, was determining where entertainment technology was going and getting to the cutting edge. When he launched the WWE Network, we all thought he was crazy. You have a subscription-based network, wonderful. But he moved all of the PPVs over to the Network and we were getting $50 a pop or whatever it was for PPVs.

When you go into subscription base, and you get all the PPVs $9.99 a month, so you get them for free, or not for free, but you know, that includes the PPVs. So, the PPVs at the time, were about 50% of the company’s revenue was coming off of the PPV. So you eliminate that whole revenue stream and move it to a different platform. Who in their right mind would do that?

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That is exactly what he did, I thought he was crazy. What I thought he should do is, you keep the major PPVs like WrestleMania, Royal Rumble, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series. You keep those on your PPV platforms and you move everything else. Because those were the big revenue generators anyway. But that’s not how he saw it, and I was wrong. Now you look at the Network and the revenue is bigger than it ever has been. They’ve now exceeded on the Network the revenue that’s coming off the PPV. He’s not afraid to take risks.”

Kane has been mostly a stranger to professional wrestling. He has since gone into politics. He was elected mayor of Knoxville, Tennessee in 2018. He plans to run for a second term in 2022.

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