The career rise and fall of WWE billionaire Vincent McMahon, who retired amid an investigation into alleged misconduct
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- WWE CEO Vince McMahon retired last week amid an investigation into alleged misconduct.
- McMahon held an iron grip on the company for four decades after taking over the business in 1982.
- Read on to learn about how he built a wrestling empire and how he navigated through the pandemic.
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McMahon was raised in North Carolina by a wrestling promoter, per Forbes. His father, also named Vincent McMahon, founded WWE (then a regional league called Capitol Wrestling Co.). McMahon's grandfather Jesse also worked in wrestling.
Before joining the family business full-time, McMahon graduated from East Carolina University, per Forbes.
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With McMahon at the helm, WWE went "from a regional operation into a global phenomenon" with events broadcast in 150 countries, according to Forbes.
WWE used heavily scripted matches featuring a revolving cast of characters to build a base of loyal fans willing to pay monthly for access to WWE's streaming service. Bloomberg reported in 2018 that the WWE Network was the 11th most popular streaming service in the nation, with 1.5 million subscribers.
"There was a time when it came across as seedy, kind of playing to barroom brawls," McMahon's daughter Stephanie told Bloomberg in 2018. "Our lines of business are really more akin to Disney than they are to anything else."
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McMahon "encapsulate[s] a thuggish old-school CEO," Benchmark analyst Mike Hickey told Bloomberg in 2020.
He even got involved in the league's various storylines. McMahon often appeared in the ring as "Mr. McMahon," a persona very similar to his real-life one, per The Washington Post.
McMahon's character in the ring was once described by Bleacher Report's Mike Chiara as a "jerk boss persona" who "had a ton of power, and he abused for the sole purpose of making people's lives miserable."
LightShed Partners analyst Brandon Ross wrote in early 2020, before the onset of the pandemic, that McMahon needed to loosen "his creative grip" because "WWE's creative process required significant overhaul," according to Bloomberg.
REUTERS/Patrick Price
In a critical segment on WWE on "Last Week Tonight" in 2019, John Oliver reported that WWE athletes have higher premature death rates than even NFL players, who studies suggest often suffer high rates of brain injuries.
Oliver called McMahon "morally subterranean" for not guaranteeing WWE talent health insurance, retirement accounts, or paid leave and worker's compensation if they get injured, and aired interviews with athletes who said they continued to work while injured because they could not afford to take time off.
Former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang echoed Oliver's critiques on Twitter in September, adding that WWE prevents wrestlers from using their likenesses to profit through third parties.
"Come on, Vince — you've already deprived the folks breaking their backs for you of healthcare, security, recovery time, retirement benefits and fair treatment re: licenses and royalties," Yang tweeted. "At least let them make a living off their own names. Many of them need it."
—Andrew Yang🧢🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) September 5, 2020
The criticism has only escalated during the pandemic. In April, early in the pandemic, while other professional sports shut down to slow the spread of the coronavirus, WWE went ahead with its signature WrestleMania event without a live audience, the AP reported. WWE said it modified its production process to film with only essential staff, but the BBC reported that the league could have done more to limit interpersonal contact on set.
Despite mounting criticism, WWE executives said the show had to go on because "people need to be entertained," according to the BBC.
Multiple WWE employees eventually tested positive for COVID-19, per Forbes.
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Before WWE, McMahon and his wife Linda invested in a struggling construction company in the 1970s on the advice of their then-accountant, she said during a Small Business Week event livestreamed on Facebook in 2017, according to CNBC
"We signed personally on some loans from the bank to float that business for a while, and we didn't understand [the industry]," McMahon said, according to CNBC. "It went belly up. … We tried for over a year to pay off the loans and we just couldn't do it anymore, so we had to declare bankruptcy."
The couple lost their home and Linda's car during the bankruptcy proceedings, per CNBC.
REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
McMahon is friends with former President Trump and they've known each other for years, according to NPR. Trump even appeared at a WWE event in 2007, where he tackled McMahon to the ground and shaved his head.
The billionaires' relationship isn't just personal, however. McMahon and his wife gave millions to both Trump's 2016 campaign and his now-defunct foundation, according to Politico.
AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
After Trump took office in 2017, Linda was appointed to the top spot at the Small Business Administration, where she served until April 2019.
"Linda McMahon has done an incredible job," Trump said after her resignation, per NPR. "She has been a superstar."
Before launching her career in politics, Linda McMahon was a WWE executive and ran two failed campaigns for a Connecticut Senate seat, according to Politico.
REUTERS/Fred Prouser
The McMahons have two children, per Forbes. Daughter Stephanie was WWE's chief brand officer before recently being named co-CEO and is married to wrestler Paul "Triple H" Levesque. Son Shane also works for WWE.
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Vince McMahon's upstart football league, called the XFL, played a single season in 2001 that Insider's James Pasley described as "a violent and sexualized version of the NFL."
The league made its big comeback in early 2020 but was forced it to cancel its season just five weeks in because of the pandemic. The company filed for bankruptcy that March, and laid off nearly all of its employees.
Wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne Johnson, along with his ex-wife and business partner, Dany Garcia, and private investment firm RedBird Capital, bought the league ahead of its scheduled bankruptcy auction for $15 million, the sports business publication Sportico reported. It's set to relaunch (again) next year.
WWE
WWE shares plunged more than 40% between December 2019 and when the coronavirus pandemic took hold of the United States in March 2020, Bloomberg reported.
The pandemic cut into ticket sales from live events, but WWE had troubles coming into 2020.
Bloomberg reported that February that the wrestling league's ticket sales and share price were both in freefall because it had oversaturated its audience with seven hours of programming each week, and McMahon was hindering WWE's recovery by refusing to switch up the company's business model.
WWE's struggles put McMahon in such a financial bind that the billionaire signed a prepaid variable forward contract with Morgan Stanley in March, allowing him to receive cash in exchange for agreeing to sell shares in March 2024, per Bloomberg.
McMahon's net worth dropped so much that he lost his spot on the Forbes 400 ranking of the wealthiest Americans.
Forbes estimated his net worth in 2020 to be $1.7 billion, but currently estimates it to be back over $2 billion. But it's still no where near the peak of his worth, which was $3.2 billion in 2019, according to Forbes.
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In April 2020, soon after the coronavirus pandemic began devastating its business, WWE released 21 wrestlers, laid off a number of backstage staffers and writers, and furloughed employees in the corporate office, according to Sports Illustrated.
Sports Illustrated wrote that "this could have been an opportunity for McMahon to stand up for his employees."
However, the company seemed to have rebounded, claiming "record 2020 results" in a February 2021 earnings report.
Then in May 2021, the company conducted more layoffs that primarily impacted its film, TV, and social-media divisions, as it consolidated all those teams into one, according to Deadline.
Getty/Joe Camporeale
NBCUniversal's streaming service Peacock struck an exclusive licensing deal with WWE in early 2021, in a deal worth more than $1 billion for five years, according to The Wall Street Journal. WWE shut down its own streaming service, WWE Network.
Insiders said the service was once a top priority for the company — as in, a top priority for McMahon.
He was early in launching a niche service in 2014, and it gained 1.6 million subscribers before being shut down. But the streaming boom of the pandemic saturated the market and forced more consolidation.
AEW
All Elite Wrestling (AEW) surged in popularity during the pandemic after launching in 2019. While WWE is still the top dog with a much larger global footprint, AEW is the only legitimate competition to WWE and has given it a run for its money.
For instance, when AEW's "Dynamite" edged out WWE's "NXT" in ratings last year, WWE moved "NXT" from Wednesdays to Thursdays, rather than keep them on the same night. AEW also poached some former WWE talent, such as CM Punk.
"I think AEW is on WWE's radar," LightShed Ventures analyst Brandon Ross told Insider last year. "Vince will make the necessary adjustments that he felt they didn't have to make when there wasn't any competition."
The Pat McAfee Show/YouTube
McMahon rarely does media interviews, but appeared on The Pat McAfee Show in March to discuss his persona, WWE's business, his family, and more.
"I don't think there was ever a day when I doubted what I wanted to do," McMahon said of his career in wrestling during the interview.
When asked whether he thinks about the future of WWE without him, particularly in the context of one of his children potentially succeeding him, McMahon replied: "Hopefully if you built something you want it to continue on and prosper and grow, whether that's with a family member or without a family member."
"You have to do what's right for the business, so if this person isn't working out, then they shouldn't be part of the company," McMahon said.
YouTube / WWE
The investigation started in April after the board received a tip about a $3 million payment to a now-former female employee that McMahon was allegedly having an affair with, according to The Wall Street Journal. The agreement reportedly prohibited the employee, a paralegal at the time, from discussing the alleged affair.
A WWE spokesperson told the Journal the former paralegal's relationship with McMahon was consensual and the company was cooperating during the investigation.
The board's investigation had also found older nondisclosure agreements with other former female employees worth millions of dollars, following misconduct claims they made against McMahon and WWE's talent relations chief, John Laurinaitis, the Journal reported.
Getty/Dimitrios Kambouris
WWE confirmed part of the Journal's report soon after, announcing that McMahon had stepped away from his role as CEO and chairman as the board conducted an investigation into misconduct by him and Laurinaitis.
The company also said that Stephanie McMahon, Vince's daughter and the then-chief brand officer, had stepped in as interim CEO.
"I have pledged my complete cooperation to the investigation by the Special Committee, and I will do everything possible to support the investigation," McMahon said in a statement in June. "I have also pledged to accept the findings and outcome of the investigation, whatever they are."
Despite stepping away from his CEO duties, McMahon appeared on WWE's "Friday Night Smackdown" the day of the announcement.
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A month after The Wall Street Journal's initial report, McMahon said he had retired from WWE.
"As I approach 77 years old, I feel it's time for me to retire as Chairman and CEO of WWE," McMahon said in a statement. "Throughout the years, it's been a privilege to help WWE bring you joy, inspire you, thrill you, surprise you, and always entertain you. I would like to thank my family for mightily contributing to our success, and I would also like to thank all of our past and present Superstars and employees for their dedication and passion for our brand."
McMahon's retirement was likely hurried by federal investigations into his hush payments to women, according to The Wall Street Journal, which WWE said in a securities filing totaled $14.6 million over a 16-year period.
WWE said in the filing that the board's investigation "expects to conclude that its internal control over financial reporting was not effective as a result of one or more material weaknesses," according to The Journal.
Stephanie McMahon and Nick Khan, the WWE president, were named co-CEOs.
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