The chief brand officer Stephanie McMahon recently claims that they always listen to the fans. She said that they always want to give what the fans want to see. And she also made a claim that the fans have a ‘Tremendous Impact’ on what they do.
This is not totally wrong though, as we have seen WWE changed their storylines for the sake of the fans. But do they do it always? The answer is a big no. This is not the first time that the WWE Authority is making such a claim. We have seen them saying such a thing previously too.
Stephanie McMahon Says How WWE Universe Has Impact On The Product
In a recent interview given to the Wall Street Journal, Stephanie McMahon made this claim. She also had a number of other things to say as well including WWE trying out new platforms and more. Given below are some highlights;
How the WWE universe does have an impact on the product:
“The audience has a tremendous impact on what we do; it’s one of the advantages of being live. We listen to the live audience and gather feedback through digital and social media to determine which story lines and performers are resonating, and why. We’re constantly looking at data across our content distribution ecosystem, which includes linear TV for our weekly shows and reality programming, our streaming WWE Network, and our digital and social channels.
We have separate teams developing the content for those various platforms, and they’re all telling stories and amplifying them in the most effective ways for each channel. Even within social media, our content can’t be one-size-fits-all.”
How fans can share feedback with WWE:
“Because we’ve responded to fan feedback in the past, they knew they could have an impact and really help make this change happen. They had seen us making changes in our ‘WWE NXT’ program, which features up-and-coming performers and is akin to a minor league system. We had already started to recruit elite female athletes and train them the same way we train men. We started giving them the same amount of match time, exposure, and opportunities, and they started to steal the show.
During those matches, the audience chanted, ‘This is wrestling!’ and ‘Women’s wrestling!’ The fans loved it, and they wanted us to do more. Simply ‘canceling’ us wouldn’t have necessarily elicited change. Sometimes it takes really listening to one another and coming up with solutions to elicit change.”
Opens up about WWE trying out new platforms:
“The bottom line is that we want to be where our audience is. We keep an eye on up-and-coming platforms and test them. For example, my husband (Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque) and I have gone on Clubhouse, an audio chat app, and experimented with that. Digital and social media have always allowed brands to test and learn quickly, but especially in this COVID era, brands are feeling the permission to do that even more. You can’t be afraid to fail—try something, and if it doesn’t work, that’s okay.
Now more than ever, consumers want to be a part of your brand, and social media allows them to do that very easily. If they are willing to spend their time and money—their most valuable resources—on your brand, they want to feel connected to it. Ask your consumers questions, and listen to them. Then thank them for helping you.”
We have seen WWE changing their WrestleMania title matches by listening to the fans. Two of the notable examples were from WrestleMania 22 where they included Rey Mysterio in the World Heavyweight title match and WrestleMania 30 where they put Daniel Bryan in the title match by listening to the fans.
But this is not the case all the time, hell, this is not the case for most of the time. There are a lot of wrestlers whom fans wanted to see get promoted but were not given the push, in fact, some get buried.