• by Adam Bernard , March 29, 2001

By Adam Bernard

World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. (WWF) has announced its purchase of the World Championship Wrestling (WCW) brand, it's chief competitor, from Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS Inc.), a division of AOL Time Warner. This makes the WWF the only prime time player in the world of pro wrestling, and gives the WWF is a certain amount of leverage, with another already established and respected brand in WCW.

"This acquisition is the perfect creative and business catalyst for our company," said Linda McMahon, Chief Executive Officer of World Wrestling Federation Entertainment. "This is a dream combination for fans of sports entertainment. The incendiary mix of World Wrestling Federation and WCW personalities potentially creates intriguing storylines that will attract a larger fan base to the benefit of our advertisers and business partners, and propel sports entertainment to new heights."

McMahon also said that the advertising that TNT and TBS had sold for future airings of WCW programming, which the Turner networks had announced would be cancelled as of March 26th, would not be the WWF's responsibility. 1-800-Collect, a company that did a lot of advertising with WCW, declined to comment on the situation.

"The acquisition of the WCW brand is a strategic move for us," said Stuart Snyder, President and Chief Operating Officer for World Wrestling Federation Entertainment. "We are assuming a brand with global distribution and recognition. We are adding thousands of hours to our tape library that can be repurposed for home videos, television, Internet streaming, and broadband applications. The WCW opens new opportunities for growth in our Pay Per View, live events, and consumer products divisions, as well as the opportunity to develop new television programming using new stars. We also will create additional advertising and sponsorship opportunities. In short, it is a perfect fit."

As of now, there is no definite decision on what will be done with WCW, although the current plot line suggests it will remain a separate entity. The WWF could keep WCW separate, and broadcast apart from WWF, with occasional crossovers of wrestlers, or they could move the wrestlers they want to the WWF and make a "super-power" of sorts of the wrestling industry.

The last hour of WCW's programming normally conflicts with the first hour of WWF's, but a simulcast during the last 15 minutes of Nitro made it so that every wrestling fan was watching WWF. This would be the first step in getting WCW's fans into the fray at the WWF, which already owns one of the highest rated shows on cable, in RAW.

This past Monday's RAW scored an overnight rating of 4.7 overall (4.1 the first hour, 5.3 the second), while the final Nitro scored a 3.0 (3.1, and 2.9). The past three weeks of Nitro averaged only a 2.1, the jump in ratings for this past week's telecast was because it was the series finale.

- Adam Bernard may be reached at Adambernard@mediapost.com