The Making Of Professional Wrestling

There was a time when all decisions in sports were made on the basis of "does it help the team?" The basis now is "does it help the bottom line?" Decisions in sports seem to be controlled by the quest for the almighty dollar.

The result is sports teams - and leagues - transforming themselves into corporations instead of sports franchises.

Unfortunately, the sports fan gets lost somewhere in the middle as we see these giant "corporations" take each other on. An interesting example of this is wrestling, where two well-funded organisations - the WWF and WCW - compete on a daily basis.

Those who follow wrestling have seen the industry grow exponentially over the last few years. The reason is very simple: the business people really running the show realize that there is money to be made. That's it, that's all.

The sport has grown so much that it is now a multi-billion dollar industry. Wrestling fans are a great demographic, ranging from little kids, to women, to senior citizens, where essentially the same "product" is sold to all.

When a company like the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) - that has been around for as long as they have - is as successful as it is - it is hard to believe that no one tried to get a piece of their pie sooner than the WCW did.

One of the reasons is that Vince McMahon, CEO of the WWF, has built an empire that cannot be easily dislodged. He often says that he is in the sports entertainment business, his lasting success is mainly due to his clear vision of where the sport is headed, and constantly fine tuning the content of the shows to suit current tastes.

He has transformed the sport from the "good guy/bad guy" concept to a more sexual, soap-opera kind of concept, with complex storylines and more in-depth character development