cg2916

What years did WCW actually turn a profit? If you can find out what the profit margin was as well, that would be amazing.

Also, when WCW was beating the WWF in the ratings, who was the number 1 wrestling company... money-wise?

iSmackUdown

Can't answer your first question but I'm going to assume WCW always had more money when they were winning because they were backed by BILLIONAIRE Ted Turner. A lot of the money was spent poorly though.

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cg2916

Oh yeah, Bischoff had the billionaire's checkbook behind him, but I'm talking just about WCW, not Turner.

Takers Revenge

WCW turned there first profit since the buyout in 1995. And this is just guessing here but they prob turned a profit in 96 and 97.

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Fresh Dougie

From a review I'm reading on the book "The Death Of WCW", by 1996, they had finally began to turn a profit for the first time in it's history, allowing them to move Nitro to 2 hours and sign Hall and Nash. I don't know how things went wrong, the Time Warner merger. Although '96 gave them a profit, it also started the outrageous contracts WCW guys were getting. I also read something about 1989 being a big turn around year for WCW, right after Ted bought the company.

And I don't know how to answer the second question. Technically, WCW was number 1, money wise. Ted owned WCW, Vince owned WWE. It's all about the money you have that you can put into your company and Ted had more, regardless of his other ventures.

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TomasThunder619

To answer your ratings question:

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666_The_Game_666

97 and 98 they made their profits. 98 at the time was the highest grossing year for any wrestling companpy ever until WWF in 2000 broke that record.

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dave 1981

WCW did great business in 1989 on the back of Flair/Steamboat, Sting/Muta, Flair/Funk and a white hot Tag Team division with The Road Warriors, The Freebirds, The Steiners, Doom and The Midnight Express and that was the first year that they turned a profit on the back of if i remember right. After that Jim Herd took over and WCW began booking crazy storylines and was all over the place especially when Hulk Hogan came in and began getting all of his friends signed.

It wasn't until Nitro began in latter 1995 that things began to get better and once Scott Hall showed up in May of 1996 the began to really get some momentum. Because they had signed Scott Hall and Kevin Nash to big contracts added to how much they paid Sting, Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair they didn't turn a profit in 1996 despite taking a firm grip of the ratings battle with WWE by July that year. If i remember right WCW turned a profit in 1997 and did a great year financially in 1998 but everything is always on the back of the year before so in reality WCW did so well in 1997 and 1998 financially because of 1996 and 1997.

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JigsawKrueger

According to Bischoff, they broke even in 1994 and turned a profit in 95,96,97 and 98. I have read the profit in 1998 was about 50 million dollars, which is inline with the WWE's believed 56 million dollar profit from April 1998 to April 1999.

I can believe this because buyrates were huge, they were running a lot of houseshows and NWO Wolfpac, Sting and Goldberg merchandise was selling. Not to mention they had 7 hours of highly rated prime time television. That would be offset by the huge salaries.

WWE is believed to have made a profit of 8 million dollar between April 1997 and April 1998. WCW did better business: Starrcade 1997 did 650,000 buys; Halloween Havoc 1997 did about 375,000 buys. Superbrawl and Bash at the Beach attracted healthy buyrates too. They also had more prime time TV.

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dylster88

WCW nade their profits when WCW was at its oeak: 1995-1998. WCW in the late 80's was going through a post-buyout stage, andwas considered inferior to WWF at the time. While WCW had better in ring action compared to the WWF,the stage production, lack of character, and ensuring steroid trials caused WCW to lose money as a result. NWO changed all of it, and then Russo, Bischoff, and the NWO caused the losing of money.