He informs that NBC basically wanted a replica of the NFL, and McMahon knew that would never work. They based their advertising around sexy cheerleaders and explosions, and the ratings for the first two weeks were terrific. Unfortunately NBC made the decision to stop shooting the cheerleaders on the live broadcasts and Lawler knew right then that it wasn’t going to work.
Lawler knew that McMahon needed control over what the programming looked like, and the talent level on the field was never good enough to sell tickets on its own. He says that Jim Ross had a great time calling the action on the field because Ross is a huge football fan. Lawler had a great time calling the games as well because he was able to use some slightly off-colour humour, appealing to their target demo of 18-24 year-old males.
Lawler is intrigued by Vince McMahon’s decision to form Alpha Entertainment, and he wonders if McMahon plans on restarting the XFL or a different football league. Lawler mentions that streaming services are eventually going to overtake regular television and he suspects that the NFL will eventually have their own network, similar to the WWE Network.
He mentions that the WWE Network needs a variety of programming in order to be successful, and they’re lacking in that sense right now. Netflix has over 45 Million subscribers right now because they have a huge variety of content, and perhaps McMahon plans on restarting the XFL or creating a new football league to air on the WWE Network in an attempt to attract more potential subscribers.
