As many of you know we stated on Twitter that we’ve been working on launching our first-ever commercial, The Stephanie Levesque Network is pleased to announce that our first-ever commercial has been released on our official YouTube Channel! Click on the image above to watch this high quality and high-definition commerical video. This video is produced by our Senior Vice President of Media and Marketing, Aaron.

• @RandyOrton who was the favorite superstar/legend that you’ve delivered the RKO to? the one to hogan on the car was my favorite (Furbs56 )
• @furbs56 Stephanie McMahon was one of a kind (Randy Orton)

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WWE expansion into network and movie studios will hype the live event even more

The next big coup for WWE will be its own cable network, to debut in 2011 or 2012. Even sooner, WWE’s movie studio will be churning out low budget movies that mix WWE’s superstars and divas with Hollywood actors, which can only help build the booming brand.

“The sky is the limit,” said Stephanie McMahon, EVP, Creative Development and Operations for World Wrestling Entertainment.

She is also the daughter of Vince McMahon, WWE chairman and CEO, who had the vision to roll up wrestling, once a regional promoter enterprise; rebrand it as sports entertainment; launch Wrestlemania, the global championship event; build a pay-per-view empire; air 7,500 hours of WWE’s television programming annually in more than 145 countries and 30 languages and then bring on a new cadre of sponsors and global partners that appeal to families.
 
And it’s all based on the live event. In 2009, WWE performed 342 live events, including 74 international events, entertaining more than 2 million fans.


In the humble beginnings, Vince McMahon bought his dad’s Capitol Wrestling in 1987, expanding his own Titan Sports and eventually becoming World Wrestling Federation which morphed into WWE. It has been a fight, in the ring and out of it, to turn a northeast wrestling promoter into a global, publically traded, entertainment company.

Stephanie can tell plenty of family-dynamics stories about the old days. Her mother, Linda, who is running for U.S. Senate in Connecticut now, likes to tell of the rare, romantic holiday she enjoyed with Vince, three days in Bermuda, thinking they were finally away from the workaholic lifestyle. The minute they landed at the airport upon their return, Vince called a press conference to announce Wrestlemania I, the championship event that has grown into a weeklong stadium celebration planned for the Georgia Dome in Atlanta this year. It was 1985. “That’s what he was thinking about that whole vacation and the second they landed, he put the ball in motion,” McMahon said. Vince and company really pioneered the pay-per-view industry with that show, she added. It was a turning point for WWE.

Family legend also has it that Stephanie’s great grandfather, Jess, was disowned by the family when he decided to become a wrestling promoter. He was the first in the line to go to college. They were thinking doctor or lawyer.

When WWE became publically traded, morphing from family business to shareholder corporation, Jess would have been proud, she guesses. She was. Going public in 1999 “was an incredibly proud moment. Our fans have always been integral to our business and now they can own a little piece of it. It was a proud day, the day we had grown big enough to become publically traded. We have been outperforming many of our entertainment peers during this recession.”

Stephanie, like her dad, has been on camera and behind a desk, actor and coach, negotiator and dealmaker. She’s proud of the past, but she’s focused totally on the future.

“Vince has publically stated we’re looking at doing our own network. That will be a big coup,” she said, projecting a 2011-2012 launch. “It’s a major business opportunity.”

And the most recent innovation is flipping the WWE film model. “We used to create $20 million theatrical releases for our films,” McMahon said. “Now, we’re trying to actually make $5 million films with incredible casts.” WWE superstars and divas (once called wrestlers, but not now) are not even necessarily the lead in these low budget undertakings. What impresses McMahon the most is the quality of the Hollywood stars they’ve been able to book for these movies.

“Superstar John Cena in our first release, ‘Legendary,’ coming out Sept. 10, with Patricia Clarkson and Danny Glover,” she said. “My husband, Triple H, just shot a film called Inside Out with Parker Posey, Michael Rappaport and Bruce Dern. The key strategy in terms of aligning our superstars with established Hollywood actors adds credibility, star power, and it helps reach outside of just our WWE audience.”

The films come out theatrically in limited theaters for a limited run, which is marketed as an event in and of itself, and then go direct to DVD. WWE has had big releases in the past, like “See No Evil,” filmed in partnership with Lions Gate, and two more films in partnership with Fox. Now they are teaming up with Goldwyn for distribution and Vivendi on the DVD side, McMahon said.

It’s important to note the storylines are not based on wrestling or action in the ring. “Our first is a family drama. The second we’ll release, called Knucklehead, is more of a comedy,” McMahon explained.

“Without question, it is a huge growth area to establish our IP (intellectual property) outside of our world,” McMahon said. “Outside the traditional WWE bubble, we can reach a lot of other people who don’t otherwise know of our product.”

That is a WWE mantra, to expand its reach in entertainment. Asked to compare WWE to other corporations, McMahon would select Disney as a peer before she would an event booking company.
International growth is also on the radar for WWE. “Mexico is our second largest pay-per-view. The UK is our first,” she said. “We have tremendous growth opportunity in South America and in China.” And the list goes on. “We’re pretty much all over the globe,” she said. The Great Khali, born Dalip Singh Rana, who happens to be seven feet tall, was a huge superstar for WWE. “Our product propelled him in India and now he’s revered there.”

The superstars and divas are WWE’s IP. “Without the superstars we wouldn’t have a show or a product to market. People come to see the attraction; the characters; the story lines come to life. That’s always been a constant in our world. We’re marketing them better than we did before,” McMahon said.

She attributes that, in part, to the strength of WWE’s current management team; to the growth of the company; and to looking at business in a different way.
“Vince challenges us to look at every day as our first day on the job. Every day we try to think of different ways of reaching audiences,” she said.

WWE has also polished its approach to finding Superstars and Divas. They have designated recruiters, a global recruiting strategy and a farm system. The developmental system is based in Florida, called Florida Championship Wrestling, where superstars and divas learn the WWE culture, become comfortable performing for TV and at live events, and learn to develop a following. “We bring them through our live events system first. They hone their craft before we put them on TV,” she said.

McMahon contends WWE is the original reality show and they have incorporated more of a live event-type reality show with NXT, which debuted in February on SyFy network. It airs Tuesday nights at 10 p.m. Eastern. “That’s our opportunity to leverage our new talent, currently in our developmental system. It’s a select group from our training center, those we feel are most ready. They come on and they’re part of the TV show and are asked to do live competitions as well as compete in the ring and they’re paired with eight WWE pros, current superstars, and that gives star power to the show as well.”

Originally in that time slot, WWE had what was its third brand, ECW, which WWE bought from AOL/Time Warner in 2001. “That brand, before we were PG, was known to be a little more hard core, a little more graphic, a little more edgy. Once we went PG there really wasn’t a place for it anymore,” McMahon said. “We will repurposing ECW with video libraries and DVD’s, but at the moment, we’re moving on.”

WWE has always been quick on its feet. The same way “a long time ago, we were wrestling. It was Vince who coined the phrase ‘sports entertainment.’ He did that back in the early 80s. So while some old timers try to position us as just legitimate sports, my father had the vision to say we are what we are, sports entertainment. Let’s come clean to the public. What we do is be the best entertainment show on television and live events,” McMahon said. It was Vince McMahon’s vision to have one global entity, one world champion.

Talent is key to the consumer product side of the business as well as the storyline. “If our audience is not reacting to what we’re doing, we had better change it, and quick. We have 10,000 people in a live focus group every night. We reach out every night, and then can hopefully stay on top of and be a little in front of what they want,” McMahon said.

Likeability is certainly one quality WWE seeks in superstars. “But the main thing that will determine whether you’ll make it in the WWE is charisma – the ability to bring in the audience,” McMahon said.

A WWE performer must make the crowd respond, whether it’s cheers or boos, “and you have to do it all with your face and your body. When you are in that ring in a wrestling match, there are no words,” she noted. It takes an average of two years for a performer to hone the craft. The current version of training camp started in 2008, but there have been predecessors, she added.

Going PG sparked growth in all aspects of the business, film and television for certain, and live as well. Wrestlemania, already a global event, became a family vacation destination. SummerSlam, which will be held at Staples Center in Los Angeles for the second year in a row this year, is building audience share as well. It’s proximity to Hollywood helps every other part of the business. They would like to take Wrestlemania and SummerSlam to PPV internationally, but the time zones are an insurmountable roadblock – so far.

Going PG also helped them attract Mattel as a major sponsor this year. WWE has a growing list of global and local sponsors, up to 200 in total now.

“These brands really want to partner with us,” McMahon said. “They want to embrace and be part of our shows. Our audiences are incredibly loyal and they do follow the brands associated with us. They appreciate the support.”

Creative is probably the biggest challenge in the WWE world. “Coming up with a new storyline for six hours or original programming every week with no opting and no reruns, that’s a big, ongoing challenge,” McMahon said. Writers and ideas come from all walks of life and the writers are on the road with the talent, helping produce and direct. It takes a special person to write for WWE…or to work there, for that matter.

What is the corporate culture? “Michelle Wilson [EVP, Marketig], when she first joined our team, described working here as driving in a Ferrari blindfolded. That’s pretty accurate. We are a fast-paced, aggressive, results-driven company. We have to be quick on our feet and deliver results in a timely fashion,” McMahon said.

That’s why she joined the business. “There is nothing else I ever wanted to do. As a kid I watched our shows and Dad as commentator. I was studying it. Nowhere else can you truly do everything you want to do in life in one company – we have a film division, PR, marketing, TV studio, create storylines, shoot, I’ve been on camera, I’ve performed in story lines, that’s how I met my husband, and we have dot.com, technology.

“The creative and entertainment side of our product has always been attractive to me. You come up with a storyline and you can create it and implement it in one week. There’s no bureaucracy. There is one key decision-maker, one head writer, and that’s Vince. It’s a unique and incredible opportunity for anyone who works here. I’m honored to work here.”

By Linda Deckard

Source: VenuesToday.com

Despite rumors, ProWrestling.net is reporting that you can cross Stephanie McMahon off the list of possible people behind the NXT invasion angle in WWE right now. The reason is pretty simple, as Stephanie McMahon is currently in the latter stages of her pregnancy right now.

A WWE source pointed out this morning that it’s highly unlikely that Stephanie McMahon would play the role of the new general manager of Raw and/or the person behind the NXT invasion simply because she is late in her pregnancy.

Jason Powell’s POV: I believe Steph is due in August. While it’s technically possible that she could be worked into the storyline if they want to keep the e-mail gimmick going, it seems highly unlikely that she’ll be revealed as the mystery person. After all, Steph has taken lengthy maternity leaves following the birth of her first two children

Source: Wrestlezone and ProWrestling