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Cowherd noted that Khan is running WWE under Vince McMahon. He says WWE is an entertainment company. Is that how Khan and Vince view WWE. Khan said there's only one person running WWE and that's Vince McMahon. He works under Vince. Khan said it's not a wrestling company and they don't use "that term here." He said they are an entertainment company - they have a podcast, they have a memorabilia show debuting next week, they have a Biographies series on A&E next week. They are in toys, merchandise, video games and priority number one is expanding WWE further into the media space.
Cowherd said they can only find so many Hulk Hogans and Rocks and Steve Austins. He compares it to the highs and lows of the NBA between major stars. He wondered where WWE goes to find the next stars. He asked if WWE has a scouting program. Khan said there was a time where individual sports stars in the early 1980s were as big as the sports leagues. When major figures rose in team sports, the individual sports stars fell off. You'd see the rise of a Michael Phelps but they wouldn't happen every four years.
Khan said WWE's ability to create and recreate the audience is unlike anything else. They have full-time people scouting the Earth looking for the next big one, but what they have learned is the next great one will be nothing like the previous great one. If they look for the next Colin Cowherd, it's just Cowherd-lite. So, they are focused on finding something new and fresh and that's what they are focused on. They are looking for stars in different countries because when a star rises from that country, it helps the company's rights and interests in that company as well as sees an interest from the fans who identify with that talent's background.
Khan was asked how long before they decide they are invested in a personality, when they flip characters and what sort of research goes into that. Khan says that wouldn't be his call - that would be Vince McMahon, Bruce Prichard (described as a Head Writer) and Triple H. He said that they would use audience reaction as a big barometer to determine how "over" talents were and that was an issue when the pandemic hit because they didn't have the ability to see how popular talents were. They had no audience, so there was no way to gauge things. He said the technology with the Thunderdome has helped since you get reaction in live time.
Khan brought up Twitter, which he said was a small minority that was very vocal. He doesn't want the company influenced by that. It's just one voice. He wants them to be influenced by many voices across the world based on fan reactions.
Continued on Page 4.
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