During a recent edition of 83 Weeks, Eric Bischoff spoke on having discussions regarding buying WCW. Here’s what he had to say:
The discussions weren’t as much about how to we pull the nose up on WCW and weren’t as much creative as it was about strategy. How do we find a home base, have the high production values, make it feel like a big show from a national perspective, yet find ways to reduce costs with regard to travel to the arena. Ticket sales didn’t justify traveling the show. So, we had to go back to a strategy I embraced probably around 1994 when I went to Disney, which was, ‘Look, we’re not drawing, we’re not hot. Let’s use our resources as efficiently as we can.’ Part of that was finding a home base.
We were in early phase negotiations that were meaningful, but we hadn’t started dotting I’s and crossing T’s at this point with the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. They were seriously considering building us a big arena on top of one of their parking decks that would’ve held about 5,000-7,000 people. We would’ve been the resident attraction there. While we weren’t in that arena, Hard Rock would use it for smaller concerts. That plan was one we were developing. Another thing we were beginning to analyze was the talent. Who do we want to keep? Who can we afford to let go? What’s the status of their existing agreements and would they want to re-sign? There was a lot of that kind of analysis and strategic discussions as opposed to creative ones.
You can listen HERE.
Credit: 83 Weeks. H/T 411Mania.
