The Business of Kayfabe

by Sean Oliver

  “I got a fortune I’m sitting on and I want you guys involved,” he said to me, leaning in close like had the winning numbers. I agreed to meet him in the lobby. I was intrigued. He’d gotten so many great old timers, I wondered who he was working with for this mystery project. Hopefully it was some cool thing with Superstar Billy Graham and Bruno. Maybe Backlund too. I headed to the lobby and found Scott holding a manila envelope. We sat down.

  “What do you have for me?” I asked.

  “In this folder, I have all the legal paperwork to prove what I’m about to tell you.” He was looking at me. Scott was an intense cat. He looked a little like Anton LaVey, founder of the church of Satan. He continued. “In about a month, I will hold the trademark for ‘Hemme-sphere.’ You know, as in Chirsty Hemme.”

  Well, it apparently wasn’t going to be Bruno. I nodded along, waiting to see where this was going.

  “Well, once we own the name, we can have you guys shoot her working out with a bunch of girls. You know, like yoga type stretches.” He leaned in, all but salivating. “Reeeeal tight clothes.”

  “Okay. Then what will they do? Is it like a wrestling training video series?”

  Scott pulled back, offended that he had to further explain. I guess he thought I was going to start beating off at his idea in the right there in the lobby of the Crowne Plaza beside the grand piano.

  “No, that’s it. It’s hot chicks doing stretches in tights. You can film them from all different angles.” He sat there waiting for something from me. I wasn’t good at poker face that afternoon. I couldn’t believe Christy was actually on board with this idea, and suspected she probably wasn’t.

  “That’s not what we do, Scott. We’re not the right guys.” How did he not know? He’d seen all our stuff. I was more confused than anything else so I shook his hand and rushed back to our set to prep for the next show, which involved no hot chicks doing Downward Dog.

  I know what our fans want, and I also know what they will regurgitate. You will also come to know it for your product, and you have to say ‘no’ when you know you won’t be giving them what they want.

  23. Marketzilla

  EVEN AFTER HAVING carefully built your business and running it smoothly, there is one monster that can step in and sink you. Not every business is totally vulnerable to it. But those that are can do nothing to stop it. The monster is 200 feet tall and weighs a ton and a half. I’m calling it Marketzilla.

  The word market is overused. In fact, it’s so overused that it has come to mean so many things in business and is largely a non-word. The people that buy your product…they are your market. All of the products similar to yours make up your product market. (“We have the best widget in the entire widget market.”) In a larger sense, global or national financial movements are also called markets, like the housing market or the stock market. The latter are the particular types of markets where our Marketzilla lives.

  Want to stay away from the crushing feel of Marketzilla? Then the one thing you are going to avoid is starting a business that is dependent on the health of a singular market. You’re giving control of your destiny away if you have made that mistake. Don’t be entirely market-based.

  Real estate and stocks are always referenced in close proximity to one another because they are both indicators of the financial health of a marketplace, and on a larger scale, a nation. They are also wholly market-based businesses. The success or challenges of the professional in such arenas is dictated by the performance of the outside entity we call the market. In truth, all business are affected somewhat by a market. A producer of fine, high-end cookware likely sells less during a recession and a housing slump. When there’s no paycheck coming in, how many people would say, “Sweetie I was thinking, we need to upgrade our skillet to restaurant quality.” And if fewer houses are selling, how many people are grabbing a set of pots for housewarming gifts? Simple enough.

  The big difference in market-based businesses and business sectors on the outskirts of markets like the cookware producer is not only the ability of the cookware company to adjust, but also the inability of market-based companies to adjust. You’ll hear the term market-based, but in reality we should say market-dependent. A real estate agency is totally market-dependent. There is no hedge, or protection, against drastic fluctuations or crises in that market. Many big real estate companies try to build additional revenue streams as a hedge—they’ll start offering mortgages, doing refinances, or selling insurance. They call it one-stop shopping. The reality is, while a real estate broker’s losses may be mitigated by adding ornamental services like this to the branches of the dying tree, the trunk is still rotting. The core business is still real estate. Bad market = bad performance.

  At KC, we managed to thrive during an actual recession. We actually did this by doing nothing differently to adjust for the crisis. The fact that we are a Business of Blood, deeply rooted in the passions of our viewers, was insurance against turmoil. When things are good in the world, people turn to us to watch the programming they enjoy. When things are bad, guess what? They turn to their passions as well for comfort and joy. We didn’t really have to adjust at all. But not all businesses will be in that position.

  Let’s stay with the cookware company example, under the fictional assumption that we’re in a recession. The facts above remain the same as in the real estate example—our business is challenged in a recession. All consumer industries are more difficult during challenging times. If we’re in a recession then people are spending less. But as a cookware company, we are in the consumer products sector, and therefore not in a market-dependent business.

  The big difference between our cookware company and that real estate office is that we, as the cookware company, can make adjustments. People may not be buying or selling houses, but they will still cook and eat, despite the plummeting value of their home. We, as the cookware company, are not so closely tied to markets, or should we say we are not market-dependent. A smart move as CEO of this cookware company might be for us to start production on a line of good quality, super-inexpensive plates and silverware. Shift your product line a bit; your high-end stuff is going to move less anyway. Why fight the trend? Slow down production on the premium products, ramp up the economical alternatives for the bootstrapped consumer, and strengthen those distribution lines. Get the new stuff in the discount shopping superstores as fast as we can.

  That adjustment was made possible by the fact that our company operates without market-dependence. We can make our decisions autonomously and affect our own fate. There is no Marketzilla stomping through our town, crushing our profits and holding us at his fire-breathing fate. We have options at our cookware company. The real estate broker will be selling fewer homes, at less value. That tide affects all boats. They are a pawn to the wrath and turpitude of the monster that controls them. It’s easy to ride that market wave when it’s heading upward. The skill required is being able to grab on and stay on for the ride.

  But there’s a creativity gene that gets starved in this process. Your Business of Blood allows for lots of leeway in your product lines. In addition, you’re speaking to the part of the consumer that wants your product regardless of the state of the world. You’re his or her escape, their joy, maybe even their vice. You’ll actually be the one to survive a market apocalypse.

  The real estate broker or stock trader is taking its direction from a market. They’re not making changes or affecting change in any way. They’re becoming versed at being a slave. It’s all left-brained exercise—receive data, analyze, act. The result is eat or starve. Repeat. It’s the thought process of animals and computers. Two items, not so coincidentally, which become extinct.

  Part Four:

  Saving It

  24. Winds of Change

  KAYFABE COMMENTARIES IS very much a Business of Blood. We are not market-dependent, and we have always stayed ahead in the innovation of our market segment. We’ve done so much correctly, it would seem we should be impervio
us to the trends and whims of external forces. Well, that’s not the case for anyone, and it has not been the case for us.

  Changes in our world and in the business models to which entertainment companies have long held, challenge us greatly. You don’t always know something is dangerous until it’s wrapped around your throat.

  I’ve heard it posited that iTunes was the first crack in the surface wherein entertainment became devalued, but I don’t think so. Digital delivery of content was never the enemy. Sure, iTunes began offering songs for $0.99 but there was a time when singles (45s for you old folk like me) were sold for individual songs, and after the expenses of pressing and shipping, the artist made very little. Now, there is no overhead to a single download, or very little. That hasn’t changed much.

  iTunes is selling entire albums (what would you call it these days?) for around $9.99 with no real overhead for those either. The consumer gets it instantly and impulse purchases are a 24-hour a day option, as no one has to worry about when the record store is closing or opening. Standing on line at the supermarket? What’s that song playing overhead? Shazam it…buy it…download it. Done. I’d imagine that the music industry moved more units than before the impulse buy of a downloaded song was possible.

  Piracy became a substantial threat with the introduction of Napster and later other file sharing and torrent sites. The fact of the matter is that this is a modern age plague that any entertainment company will have to deal with in some capacity. Each company has their own methods and thresholds for piracy and it’s just a fact of digital life and a generational defect that most people under 40 think it’s okay to steal something if it’s digital and they remain anonymous. Until something happens on a larger scale and Internet service providers get in on the blockage of such activity, we will have to deal with the challenge however we can.

  I don’t really see piracy as the most significant blow to media either. It has greatly lowered potential sales and yes, because we have a lower ceiling on earning potential of a title, we will not spend as much on its production as we once did. But it’s a fact of life for us and we’re managing.

  The real storm began several years ago when Netflix began sweeping through people’s homes. Streaming in general has been the greatest threat to us, further fostering the notion that digital media is near worthless. The cost per program has become so infinitesimal and that is not the fault of the consumer, but the content producers ourselves. Can I really blame a customer who takes advantage of the legal option to pay $7.99 for access for 5,000 movies and TV shows? I have Netflix too.

  The studios themselves have allowed their product to be offered so low by leasing programming to Netflix, Amazon Prime, and wherever else for a pittance. The entire industry could’ve banded together and set the cost at whatever they wanted. They could have ignored Netflix altogether, pulled their programming and made Netflix survive on the merits of only its original shows.

  In entertainment, the power always rests with the content providers. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and any other outlet airing third-party programming would cease to exist without us, the producers. So it was really our decision to offer 5,000 shows for $7.99, or $0.0016 each movie. They’ve made the bed and now all of us are forced to lie in it.

  So in the spirit of a responsible Business of Blood, we recently launched our own subscription-based streaming network that currently airs our back catalogue and will eventually be showing premieres of new programs. This is the model that the people have demanded, and we will provide it.

  But there are some realities to what the people will now be served. As a niche of a niche, we will not have the volume of subscribers that Netflix and WWE Network have, so our productions will have to scale accordingly.

  This entire book has been about bobbing and weaving—stayin’ alive so you can adjust and put your power into the next shot thrown. It’s somewhat fitting that we close this journey with a real-time challenge and a peek inside my thinking going forward.

  Our opponent is three times bigger than anything we’re used to. First and foremost is the marketplace having been trained that ala carte purchases are obsolete. No one buys a movie anymore. They buy 5,000 for less than a penny each. In a niche that sells a dependable but small about of content, our content was just devalued by 1000%. Well, at least our viewer base is still as dedicated as they always were. Right?

  Well, that’s no longer so either. Herein lies obstacle two—the ramifications of the overabundance of shoot content via WWE Network and podcasts, crowding the marketplace. I’d always thought that would work to our advantage by mainstreaming the type of content we produce. Well, the lack of quality from many of these other sources has had the opposite effect. It anesthetized the fans. They’re fed dogshit and told it’s ice cream, and people won’t deal with that shit for long. So they are smaller in number.

  And finally, piling on the pack is the disrespect for digital media and the rampant theft and piracy. If the first two blows didn’t take you out and you’re hanging onto the ropes, here’s an uppercut.

  You have to identify the threats to your business’s well being. Some will say you’re whining about the state of the world. Well, no one who owns a business would say that; they will understand you are identifying the challenges. If someone asks me about our challenges at KC, I tell them. They just don’t want to hear how their downloading of torrents of our shows has hurt us. They don’t want to hear that expecting a company with a viewership our size to charge what Netflix does is ridiculous. We’re a boutique operation working in a micro-niche, and as such we must charge more. And yeah dude, that torrent on your PC cost us. Sorry.

  So let’s close by addressing all three threats before we sail west, into the current. In addressing the first threat, we have launched our subscription service where you now get hundreds of hours of KC shows for a low price. We didn’t choose the path of devaluing programming—that was done for us as I mentioned. But it’s the reality we are in, alas our KC Vault subscription site. I fully expect the shows to yield a fraction of the revenue they did before. As such, I am prepared to slash production from our high of 18 new shows per year down to 4-6 at most until the model proves itself.

  The second threat, overcrowding of shoot programming, is also a new reality. We’ve lit the way and others have arrived in the form of podcasts and WWE Network’s half-assed attempts at being provocateurs. The existence of other rock bands means we just have to keep plugging in our electric guitars and hitting the road. It may be rock n roll, but they don’t sound like us. I’ve always believed one of our moats was us—Anthony’s writing and my on camera hosting. Competition never scared me. You can buy the guitar, but you ain’t gonna sound like Eddie.

  Last and least is piracy. We need help from lawmakers and the commitment from ISPs to police the Internet. I know the net-neutrality crowd will be in an uproar, but let’s just stop being silly and pretending that any segment of civilized society, whether online or not, should be unregulated and free of governance against crime. You can’t break the law, whether it’s kiddie porn or copyright infringement. Crime is crime, and Verizon, Optimum, Cox, and whoever else is providing us with information superhighways needs to start policing them—flagging suspicious activity and shutting down the transmission of prohibited materials. They can surely code some algorithms that recognize transmission of illegal data.

  It kinda sucks operating in a time period where some of the same people who laud us for providing unique programming that speaks to their Blood, would also steal our product online but never dare take anything from inside a Banana Republic or Spencers. In some way, one is crime, and the other is justified.

  So just like any store with security guards or alarms at the doorway, we need to pay for anti-piracy services. Can’t snag them all, but you get what you can.

  Twelve years ago Kevin Sullivan walked into our hotel suite with his booking agent James Soubasis and shot an episode of this thing called Guest Booker. It wasn’t supposed
to be a series, and it wasn’t even really a shoot interview. It was programming aimed at that part of Antony and me that loved hearing about the intricacies of the wrestling world, and watching a talented booker do his job. Since then we’ve written, shot, edited, scored, and released 175 feature-length shows.

  We’ve been emulated, awarded, decried, and decorated. I’ve been the Timeline-guy when I’m stopped and told I’ve sparked some childhood love in someone. I’ve been the YouShoot-guy when I read what an asshole I come across as when asking fan questions about Batista’s dick. We’ve watched ideas flourish and become financial successes beyond anything we’d expected back when I was sitting with Sullivan in 2007. And we’ve released new shows designed to revolutionize and reinvent the shoot market, only to watch them fall to the earth, and force me to put our darlings to death.

  I’ve been complimented by some of the biggest and most respected names in the business. I’ve been stood-up and fucked over by its nightcrawlers. I’ve learned my business with no formal training, and there have been days it’s made me feel invincible. And probably an equal number of days where I cannot even pick my head up to look anyone in the eye.

  Your Business of Blood will be wonderful and life affirming. It will be a prison and citadel of self-doubt. Friend, it’s going to be a lot, and that’s why you should do it. It’s like life itself—robust and full of emotion. It will make you, then break you. But you’ll get up tomorrow and be made yet again.

  The one thing you’ll never be, is forgotten.