Nick Khan knows WWE fans expect every show to deliver, but he doesn’t think that’s a realistic standard for any company. In fact, Khan believes being one of the biggest brands in the business comes with the expectation that every night somehow needs to be a “killer show,” even though nobody can actually pull that off every time.
While speaking to The Varsity, Khan was continuing his discussion about WWE criticism on social media. He had already explained that WWE listens when fans have legitimate complaints but doesn’t believe the company should start changing direction based on every negative reaction online.
Khan then turned to traditional sports to explain why criticism doesn’t necessarily mean fans are walking away. He asked John Ourand about being a Baltimore Orioles fan, knowing there were probably plenty of things he could complain about while still continuing to watch the team.
That brought Khan to the Los Angeles Lakers and the pressure that comes with being a major brand. The bigger the name, the bigger the expectation, and he puts WWE firmly alongside some of the most recognizable organizations in sports.
“You hear a lot of complaints about the Lakers. Why is this? Why is that? Why is this? Well, they won the championship in 2020, but there’s a certain expectation with the premium brands, Yankees, Lakers, Cowboys, WWE, UFC, that everything is going to be, every show’s gonna be a killer show. Every game is gonna be a killer game.”
Khan doesn’t believe that standard reflects how sports or business actually work. He pointed to the NFL, where an entire season can sometimes be treated like a failure simply because it didn’t end with a Super Bowl.
“And in the NFL, if you don’t win the Super Bowl, then, hey, you didn’t have a great season. It doesn’t work that way, right?”
WWE isn’t going to get everything right either. Khan acknowledged there are going to be wins and losses along the way, and his concern is making sure the company ends up with considerably more of the former.
“There’s wins, there’s losses on a daily basis in your business, in our business. You just gotta hope that you can get more wins than you can losses.”
For TKO, there’s also a pretty easy way to see whether those wins are adding up from a business perspective. Khan pointed directly to the company’s performance on Wall Street.
“And if you can, boom, in our business, the stock price is up.”
Those comments came during the same conversation where Khan called Triple H the “best creative” in all of wrestling and explained why WWE won’t let social-media criticism dictate its creative decisions. Khan clearly trusts the people running WWE, but that doesn’t mean he expects them to hit a home run every single night.
Being WWE means fans are going to expect RAW, SmackDown and every premium live event to deliver like the biggest show of the year. Khan’s point is that even the Yankees lose games, the Lakers lose games and WWE is going to have nights that don’t hit either. What matters to him is whether the wins keep piling up when the bigger picture is counted.
Do you agree with Nick Khan that fans expect too much when they demand a “killer show” from WWE every time, or should a company of WWE’s size be held to that standard? Let us know in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
