Nearly 13 years ago, PWTorch columnist Pat McNeill predicted an eventual WWE Network and broke down what it would look like. Included were some interesting predictions in retrospection. The following is McNeill's "McNeill Factor" column originally published in the Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter in August 2001.

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"McNeill Factor"
Headline: We control all you see and hear
Originally published: August 25, 2001
Pro Wrestling Torch Newsletter #667

Those people who are not familiar with the business of professional wrestling probably think that the World Wrestling Federation had a tough fiscal year. Their launch of the new XFL football league fizzled in public fashion, and they shelled out some greenbacks for the remnants of the dying World Championship Wrestling. But the WWF's latest financial report showed a profit of $456 million for the completed fiscal year. The WWF was more profitable last year than it has ever been.

The WWF (not to be confused with the World Wildlife Fund) has no national competition. They own World Championship Wrestling. They may own some of what's left of Extreme Championship Wrestling. No other company has stepped forward to run pay-per-views against the WWF. No other company has a national television slot. None of the major wrestling companies in Japan or Mexico are planning to expand into the United States. The WWF also controls its own developmental program, enabling it to create and mold future superstars. What can WWF Entertainment, Inc., do for an encore?

The WWF, like any business at the top of its field, will have to come up with new revenue sources. Some industry analysts thought that the WWF would attempt to either purchase a pay-per-view distributor, or come up with its own company to distribute pay-per-view events. That hasn't happened yet.

The WWF could also opt to expand its revenue stream in a different way. For years, wrestling fans have tossed around the idea of a pro wrestling cable network. It seemed like a pipe dream back when there were two major companies, but with the WWF's purchase of WCW from AOL Time Warner in March, most of the major obstacles to such a network have been swept away. When WWF owner Vince McMahon has been asked about the possibility of a wrestling channel in mainstream interviews, he has either shuffled the question aside or said that the WWF was not ready to undertake such an effort.

But the demand is there. And there's no better time than the present.

If you want to start a full-time cable channel from scratch, you will end up paying a heavy price. In order for the WWF (or anybody else) to launch a full scale cable network from scratch, it requires an investment of $50-100 million dollars, plus a ramp-up period of six to twelve months for the network to put all of its pieces together. This is a large investment, to be sure, but it's nothing that the WWF can't afford. In other words, you need money and time. Not surprisingly, these are two items that WWF Entertainment, Inc. owns in abundance.

What are the potential rewards? Earlier this year, Sony Pictures Entertainment sold a half interest in one of my favorite channels, the Game Show Network, to a company called Liberty Digital for a cool $235 million. With a little junior high school math, you can see that the Game Show Network has an estimated net worth of $470 million. Keep in mind that the Game Show Network has two original shows, which provide a grand total of five hours of original programming per week, and you can see that it doesn't take a lot of creative energy to create a cash cow of some magnitude.

Let's say that the World Wrestling Federation sees the wisdom of owning and operating "The Slam Network," the wrestling cable channel. The WWF's next step is to make sure that people will be able to see the channel. For a normal start-up cable network, this grueling process would involve learning how to get satellite time, copious amounts of testing, and groveling before every major cable company and satellite provider. For the World Wrestling Federation, things should be considerably easier. As a matter of fact, the WWF is currently at the table negotiating a new deal with DirecTV, a deal that is supposed to fatten the wallets of all concerned. The WWF is the top source of pay-per-view revenue for DirecTV. How difficult would it be to slide a wrestling network onto the DirecTV lineup? Not that difficult at all.

Next up are the cable networks. The McMahon family has never been shy about confronting cable networks in the name of protecting its business. In 1987, the WWF put the kibosh on the NWA's initial Starrcade pay-per-view by scheduling its first Survivor Series against it and convincing cable companies to lock Jim Crockett's effort out of the market. In 1989, the WWF begged its fans to call their local cable companies and badger them until they agreed to carry every WWF pay-per-view. Just last year, the WWF and Viacom put together a major effort to rally fan support and convince cable companies to carry TNN, the new national home of WWF Raw.

With the cable television industry more consolidated than ever, the WWF only needs the cooperation of a handful of multiple system operators (MSOs) to gain a foothold in the cable industry. Cable television is moving toward digital cable in order to compete with the expanded lineup of satellite television. Most cable companies are likely to be as hungry for a WWF channel as the satellite companies are.

So, once the WWF has everybody lined up, what the heck will they put on their new cable network? One hundred and sixty-eight hours a week of satellite time to fill. It's best to reduce the exercise to one of elementary mathematics. The idea of filling twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week is pretty daunting, until you take a look at how the other cable networks do it.

Many cable networks average six to eight hours of infomercials a day. Infomercials mean guaranteed moolah to a cable network, and there sure are enough of them. By allotting eight hours a day in the early morning/late night bracket for those infomercials, the bar is lowered by one third. One hundred and sixty-eight minus fifty-six leaves one hundred and twelve hours to go.

It's time to break out the original programming, and time to be creative about it. Trouble is, the WWF's first run wrestling programming is committed to Viacom. But that still gives the WWF a great deal of leeway to use its second run programming. You see, TNN has never shown a rerun of WWF Raw. UPN has never repeated an episode of WWF SmackDown. They don't have to. The WWF puts out new shows every week, which is what separates it from many other forms of televised entertainment. As any fan of American network television knows, if you haven't seen it, it's new to you.

Nowadays, many first run network television shows are being replayed on cable television during the same season they are on a network. If the WWF hasn't already negotiated for those rights, it's time to do so.

Let's say that the WWF picks up the right to air second run episodes of Raw, Smackdown, Heat, Metal, and Jakked just a few weeks after their initial airing on Viacom or in syndication. The WWF Channel now has six hours of fresh programming a week. If they rebroadcast every show once a week, as is natural for a cable network, that makes a total of twelve schedule hours filled. One hundred hours left to go.

We're rolling now. Two airings a week of WWF Tough Enough reruns and WWF Byte This knocks an additional two hours off the schedule. Two thirty-minute airings a week of the unedited videos that the WWF Tough Enough applicants sent in. That show could be the sleeper hit of the network. An hour of TNN Robot Wars reruns (starring Mick Foley), plus one replay nets an additional two hours. Five down. Ninety-five hours left to go.

If you're completely stuck on how to proceed from here, now is a good time to remember that the WWF not only has a massive video library, but it also owns the rights to the WCW video library. The magic number for getting reruns of a television show into syndication is a hundred episodes. There were about 165 episodes of WCW Thunder taped for broadcast. There were approximately 800 episodes of World Championship Wrestling on TBS Superstation. There were at least 600 episodes of WCW Worldwide. There are approximately 250 episodes of WCW Monday Nitro floating around, and that doesn't even make allowances for the three-hour versions of Nitro, or the hour-long version that ran for thirty-one weeks.

With that volume of material, there is easily enough footage to run six hours a day of old WCW/NWA wrestling, five days a week. Thirty hours a week of programming, without even blinking. Sixty-five hours still to go, and we're not even using the footage at its peak efficiency.

Assuming that the side with the money gets the duke in the big ECW trademark brouhaha, the WWF could also end up with ECW's video library. One hour a week, replayed once, in order to keep from exposing Paul Heyman's best work as dated material. In the interest of fairness, allot Jim Cornette the same amount of time for reruns of Smoky Mountain Wrestling, and give Ross some time for old Mid-South Wrestling show. Six hours a week, leaving a total of fifty-nine hours to fill.

Don't forget the developmental territories. Ohio Valley has a television show, as does UPW and the IWA. Eventually, the WWF will probably have another territory in Memphis, but you can always fill with episodes of Bill Behrens's NWA Wildside show until they do. Four one-hour shows, rerun once, fill eight hours. Fifty-one hours left to go.

Some of you may question the wisdom of opening the channel up to territories, or even to Bill Behrens. But there's absolutely nothing for the WWF to worry about. They have the talent and the production values, making any other promotion that appears on the channel automatically look second-rate. Plus, they'll be signing contracts with Vince and friends which would effectively stall them from getting national TV deals on their own. Right, Vince?

Oh, and we completely forgot about the WWF's own video library. Over 200 two-hour episodes of Raw, plus another couple hundred of the one-hour variety. Over 100 episodes of Smackdown. Over 150 episodes of Sunday Night Heat and counting. Plus 250 episodes of the old Prime Time Wrestling show, not to mention WWF and WWWF syndicated programming from the days when syndicated shows mattered. Eight hours a day. Five days a week. Forty hours filled. Eleven hours to go.

At this point in the game, it's time to be playful. Set aside the least profitable two hours a week for the "Independent Wrestling Spotlight." Get indy promoters to mail in copies of their shows, with at least two different camera shots. Get them to sign away their rights for the chance to air their shows on national television. Use these tapes to completely bury the reputations of any non-WWF affiliated independent promotion in the country.

At the suggestion of Brian the Roommate, buy the rights to the series "Thunder in Paradise," to keep somebody in line. One hour a week.

Solve the problem of what wrestling fans should do on Sunday night when the WWF is not running a pay-per-view. Fill three hours every Sunday night with "The Big Event," featuring must-see wrestling material, including stuff like classic WWF/WCW/NWA pay-per-views, vintage WWF shows from Madison Square Garden and other major venues, or old WWF Fanatix shows after they have outlived their shelf-life. Make this show the premium showcase for all things good about professional wrestling. On nights when the WWF is running pay-per-views, run tapes of classic XFL football games.

An hour a week, plus one replay, for "Inside the Wrestlers' Studio," featuring in-depth biographies of current and past WWF talent. A new episode each week. Treat Paul Wight's career with the same gravity as Steve Austin's, and trust the fans to get the joke. This segment can also be used for other documentaries, like "The Making of Fuji Vice."

Two hours a week of college or amateur wrestling. Really. It shouldn't be too hard to get the broadcast rights, and there are plenty of fans of the genre out there.

Finally, to fill the last hour, it's time for the sort of show that you can only get on the Slam Network. "The Best of Tuesday Night Titans." Finished. Done.

Would hardcore wrestling fans, the sort of fans who visit our website and read this newsletter, tune in to watch some of the programming on the Slam Network? Is the Pope Catholic?

Would the casual wrestling fan flip by every once in a while to check things out? Probably. And if they saw something that they liked, they might stick around.

Now that we're done, and we have our lineup set, here comes the best part for the WWF. The World Wrestling Federation now holds leverage over Viacom, DirecTV, or any other potential television partner. Once the channel is launched, and has attained a certain level of coverage over North America, the WWF can tell television network to go jump. Got a problem over the rights to Raw? The McMahons can threaten to air Raw on its own station. Need an extra national cable timeslot to launch WCW as a separate promotion? The WWF doesn't need to wait on TNN to free up the space. They could do it on their own.

So why not give this a shot? What is holding the WWF back? Perhaps there is some concern that a wrestling cable network could water down the demand for pro wrestling as a whole. Well, that was the argument that the WWF used against World Championship Wrestling in 1995 when WCW launched Nitro on Monday nights to compete against Raw. Rather than kill the wrestling business, the competition helped to revitalize the industry.

As Wade Keller put it in TORCH #425 "Exciting wrestling makes people want to spend money on wrestling." The WWF may not have outside competition to contend with, but they can use the reminders of what professional wrestling was in the recent and distant past. The history lessons that they could absorb from their own videotape libraries could help propel the business into the future.

ESPN hasn't held down the demand for televised sports. MTV hasn't ruined sales in the music industry. Home Box Office hasn't killed the movie business. A dedicated cable network won't kill wrestling. It can only make it stronger.

Pat McNeill has been a Torch Team Contributor since April 2000.

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