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WWE Cuts Production Crew Travel Costs To Save Money

9K views 63 replies 42 participants last post by  Terminus 
#1 ·
From the following post on Reddit, WWE in effort to saves cost has stop paying for travel for the production crew members. They are now required to pay for these costs on their own. The post gives insightful detail on the lives of the production crew.

Some of you may have heard the news today about budget cuts affecting the WWE touring Production/Backstage Crew. If you haven't, have a read
Some of you might be thinking why this is such a big deal. Well as someone who works backstage at shows like these for a living and has worked on WWE shows in the past, I'm here to explain.
But first I need you to not read further not just as a wrestling fan, but as someone reading about how sombody makes their living for themselves and their familes.
To start off with, the average salary of a WWE production/backstage crew member is anywhere between $40,000 and $75,000 a year. (Obviously this can change on depending on the contract and position and individual.) The crew member will spend around 300 days a year out on the road touring from city to city working on the TV shows, house shows, and PPV's as well as anything else in between. (This does not include the current iteration of NXT, as that is an entirely different production).
Here is a sample schedule of what a normal work week for WWE looks like. The typical day will start at 8am and will go all the way through to 230-3am. Then they hop in the bus and travel to the next city for the next show. Rinse, wash, and repeat for a year and you pretty much have an idea of the life.
Up until now, the WWE has paid for all travel expenses for the crew, including providing buses and airfare as well as hotel accommodations when needed. Now, due to budget cuts, these travel expenses have been removed and the crew is now responsible for their own travel.
This is a major problem for 2 major reasons.
The amount of traveling done by WWE is massive. If your paying your employee to travel all over the country nearly everyday, but now are expecting them to pay for that travel, it's going to cost the employee a very large sum of money, effectively it could cut thir yearly salary in half just on traveling alone, making working for the company seemingly pointless financially.
The physical and mental toll that touring has on someone is exhausting. The normal day to day workload of a WWE crew member is intense and physical, causing very long days and nights. Yes, wrestlers normally carpool or drive themselves to the show, but at tapings and raw there not expected to be there until 1pm on a showday. The crew is there 8am. Most nights the load out of the show won't finish until 3am, sometimes later. If your being expected to work this schedule AND drive and take care of your own travel expenses year round, your going to be in a very unhealthy and potentially dangerous situation and work enviorment.
So why is this happening? The WWE, since the release of the WWE Network, the WWE has created a new business model for itself to help reinvent the interest and future of Pro-wrestling. Unfortunately, they have not quite figured out all the bugs to the network, it hasn't been released internationally yet, and the company is attempting to present itself in a way it hasn't before, which although has been good from an entertainment point of view, from a business point of view it's been difficult to handle thinking so much out of the box and making a profit from it. Without getting to much into detail, the company has been losing money from PPV buyrates and it's recent NBC Universal deal has hurt the pockets of the company.
Haven't they done anything else to save money? See "Black Thursday" releases from last week.
Why is this such a big deal While the superstars are the face of the WWE, and the writers and corporate are the "brain", the crew literally make up everything else in the body that is WWE. Without them, there would be no show to showcase the talent. No ring, no lights, no cameras, no ANYTHING. These men and women literally make up what you see the WWE as that's not anything in-ring related. A massive blunder like this could potentially haul the giant machine that is WWE.
What do you mean Hault? I mean a walk out or mass quit of WWE by the entire production crew. A strike could even ensue. A good number of WWE crew members are represented by IATSE (International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees), the governing union body for stage hands in the U.S. and Canada. Word gets to them and a boycott will also ensue, which would cease all production of WWE as a whole (again excluding NXT)
Couldn't the WWE just hire another crew if people quit? Yes, but any smart, skilled crew member would look at the new deal and turn it down. They could hire less skilled/green crew members for less, but you get what you pay for. Reputation is everything in the backstage touring industry, it's a very very small world. Disney on Ice is an example of a touring show with a reputation of bad contracts and pay, with a very high turn around in employment. Many hands are asked if they want to join a tour, but most turn it down based on what they hear.
It's just traveling though, there still getting paid the same. Wrong. We've already said that even if they were making $50,000 yearly, if they had to pay their own travel expenses with that kind of schedule it would eat almost nearly half of that salary alone. Even writing it of tax wise would still not help. And who's to say the next thing the budget cuts affect is the working wage? Benefit cuts? It's a slippery slope, but CM Punk can bail on his work months before his contract is up but is still paid millions to watch hockey from his home from his contract.
Can they really shut down WWE's production schedule? in 2007 IATSE Local 1 in New York City shut down Broadway completely for 2 weeks during the busiest time of the season to fight work wages and hours, which they won.
So what can I do to help? If it comes to WWE shutting down production from a walkout or strike, support the cause. Don't illegally stream PPV's, and if you can subscribe to the network. Educate yourself and remember..
These are the people who make your favorite program and entertainment possible. Support my brothers and sisters in the backstage industry to fight for a workable living and a safe work environment.
Feel free to ask any questions. I'll do my best to answer them.
http://www.reddit.com/r/SquaredCircle/comments/28iq5s/the_wwe_production_crew_issue_why_its_important/

What a mess :no: These people are the backbone of the show.
 
#10 ·
WWE sounds like a god awful company to work for. I feel for these people. They are undoubtedly hard-working, highly skilled employees and deserve to be treated as such.

The McMahons can piss away over $100 million for Senator Linda bullshit but have to cut out these people's travel expenses? As one person pointed out, I'm sure they used that travel time to get much deserved, much needed rest. This sounds like an accident waiting to happen.
 
#13 ·
Linda's campaign went down as the biggest failure in history because no one else had spent so much of their personal money and not get elected. So Vince spends his time taking potshots at Obama to ease his pain.

Vince losing that much money was his own doing. If he would stop changing storylines according to how the wind blows the product would look more stable and attract a wider audience because ppl would be able to follow along better. A wider audience attracts better tv deals. It's because they didnt get the amount they wanted they had probably over budgeted and now have to make cuts.

Also align themselves with better sponsers. Every one knows how shady Susan G. Komen is.
 
#34 ·
EWW ;)



The network itself wasn't to blame, Vince making promises that he couldn't keep about it is. They should have had pre-reg days, that was so damned idiotic to make it only registration on the opening day, what is this 1995?
 
#40 ·
I am a little disappointed by the over all lack of rage around the internet about this. This is 100% wrong and the road crews in no way deserve this while scum like Dunn and Hayes are still employed..
 
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#2 ·
Whenever RAW comes through my home town (Richmond, VA) a lot of my friends who are tech/production people, work it. So I wonder how many travelling production staff they have. I'm sure it's plenty, but a shows whole production staff are not made up of those that travel from show to show.

I'd also hazard a guess that the staff, much like people in regular jobs, can claim travel expenses as a tax write-off, so while not and ideal/easy situation, it's maybe not as simple as 'now they all have to pay their own way'. I'm also pretty skeptical of this whole report, to be honest. I find it hard to believe WWE doesn't cover travel expenses to some degree for essential staff.

Just doing a bit of Devils Advocate-ing.
 
#4 ·
You may be able to claim it but you won't get all of it back. Plus you would be waiting until whenever you get your refund to get the money while meantime you're still out of pocket.

The more senior staff may be covered but where does that leave the others? New job perhaps? Nobody said it was the whole production staff. We're talking about the ones who do RAW, Smackdowns and maybe some of the house shows.
 
#5 ·
Exactly. I bet most of the sleep that crew gets is when they're travelling. You don't want a crew member who has been travelling all night and working off of little sleep not rigging up a light correctly because he's too tired and it comes crashing down on little Jimmy in a Cena shirt in the front row.
 
#7 ·
Willing to bet somebody like The Great Khali doesn't make as much money in the Indian market than he gets paid. Get shot of that big useless fool instead of cutting things you need.
 
#12 ·
I hope they all walk before one of them dies in a car accident trying to go from town to town with no sleep, this kind of nonsense just infuriates me, so much I don't really think I can write a decent post.

I just hope no one gets in any car accidents over all this idiocy.
 
#15 · (Edited)
I will play both sides of the fence here. WWE is a business, a lot of the top tier performers have travel accomondations taken care of, however, I would assume, guys like Zack Ryder pay for their own travel, hotel, etc. If the WWE goes out of busines, no one will have a job. I understand WWE shot themsevles in the foot w/ the Network, shorterm. However as a proud paying member, I hope they stick with it.

Sometimes in business you have to make unpopular decisions to stay afloat. I asked this in another thread, but did WWE always pay for the travel of all of their essential production crew? I would almost assume no that wasn't the case. This was a luxury that WWE afforded some of their hardest working employees, that unfortantely has to revoked for a while.


Maybe the WWE can split the travel cost like the Federal Govt does w/ some of it's DC based employees that ride the metro. They don't give us a lot, but it certaintly helps offset the cost.

Side note: If there are budget issues, I can also see them doing away with the Drug Rehab program for all previous employees, however, keeping the Wellness Policy in place for it's current performers. That's an expense they talked about on some feature maybe (ESPN, Forbes, etc) that they wanted to impliment along time ago but didn't have the means/funds to do so.
 
#41 · (Edited)
If the whole production crew up and quit because of this new rule, the WWE would go under in a matter of weeks.
They all need to strike until they get it back. They need to stick it to the WWE.

The WWE is one of the worst companies I can think of, on how they treat their employees. Just look at how they have to call their wrestlers independent contractors and now they are screwing over the little men and women who are the backbone of the show.

I really do hope they all strike and refuse to work until its all paid for again.


If they are going to cut something, then cut back on the hotels they use, just go to cheaper ones that are like $50 a night, and can't the WWE just buy their own planes or buses to fly everyone around? Why haven't they done this already.
 
#19 ·
They would have never, ever, done this while Linda was campaigning, by the way.

The worst part is that this is not a necessity. The WWE is not going out of business. It's simply something done to pacify the investors. All of this was brought on by Vince way overselling the potential of the TV deals and the network. None of this ever would have happened if it weren't for that.

This is a self-created catastrophe that isn't even really a catastrophe. They could easily wait things out, but they've made it so that investors have unrealistic expectations.
 
#20 ·
I'd rather they get rid of the useless/unnecessary wrestlers and use their paycheck to pay travel costs for the production crew. They're the backbone of the WWE.

Also I might get flamed for this but..... WWE should release CM Punk from his contract. Let him sit at home, but don't pay him to sit at home. I bet Punk makes millions as it is, so it would also save money. Punk took his ball and went home, let him sit at home.
 
#21 ·
Also I might get flamed for this but..... WWE should release CM Punk from his contract. Let him sit at home, but don't pay him to sit at home. I bet Punk makes millions as it is, so it would also save money. Punk took his ball and went home, let him sit at home.
I don't think that the WWE is paying CM Punk. It's a breach of contract on his part for not performing. Austin was in the same situation, and he said he stopped getting checks when he walked out, and he ended up regretting that heavily.

They just haven't sued Punk (or Austin) because they want him to come back.

He's probably still getting merchandising checks, because legally they have to do that, but the WWE is also benefiting from the merchandise sales.
 
#22 ·
damn that's pretty intense..i honestly feel sorry for the lower tier backstage guys who get paid little yet are an essential part to the show i mean ring/lights/pyro/soundsystem/barricades etc don't set themselves up...having to throw out probably half your salary for the sake of a job really doesn't make sense unless you're making mad amount of $$$ ...with that said really and truly these sort of cuts really only affect the lesser paid staff because im sure the higher tier guys who get the mad $$ gets free travel expenses and then some

the wwe should have just cut useless talent like Khali etc
 
#23 ·
If they want to cut costs, stop employing so many useless wrestlers like Great Khali and stuff. Stop having creative writers who are just there for the money. Stop having these insanely massive HD LED stage setups.

And more importantly...stop having shows in arenas where even the fans know the arena won't sell out because it's in "Parts Unknown,USA". The fact that cities which sell out don't even get shows too often is sad. When was last time NYC got a RAW taping? When was the last time Canada got a PPV? Yet we see random places in Arkansas,Alabama and other cities getting multiple events a year and they can't even draw people to them.
 
#24 ·
If they want to cut costs, stop employing so many useless wrestlers like Great Khali and stuff. Stop having creative writers who are just there for the money. Stop having these insanely massive HD LED stage setups.

And more importantly...stop having shows in arenas where even the fans know the arena won't sell out because it's in "Parts Unknown,USA". The fact that cities which sell out don't even get shows too often is sad. When was last time NYC got a RAW taping? When was the last time Canada got a PPV? Yet we see random places in Arkansas,Alabama and other cities getting multiple events a year and they can't even draw people to them.
I'm sure going forward, that will change. You do lesser known towns because you want to build your base. At this point, they need money, so I fully expect them to start hitting major markets more.
 
#27 ·
WWE sounds like a fucking nightmare company to work for with all the fancy travel arrangements and that other shit they're cutting. Those poor production guys are going to be fucking exhausted because those precious hours in between travelling from place to place was their downtime. They've lost that now, so how can anyone honestly expect them do their jobs properly under all this chaos?
 
#30 · (Edited by Moderator)
Horrible and Linda McMahon and her stupid campaign is one reason to blame for this I believe. Obviously a ton of money was invested in her failed attempt trying to get herself in the political world because she is a McMahon. At this point I don't even know of WWE will be even in existence in 10 years which is a shame. Also the Network numbers apparently haven't been up to par and then you've got guys lie Khali earning a ton of money and can't work for shit yet they release Jinder Mahal who had potential to appeal to the Indian fans. This company are in a financial mess right now, honestly Vince needs to retire at this point.

Obviously there will be things we don't know about but I really think the Network now was a horrible idea.
 
#31 ·
I don't think that the network is a horrible idea per say, I think the WWE shot themselves in the foot when they hyped it up and then only released it in the US. International folks like me would've loved to have paid for the network even if it's just to watch the PPVs.
 
#33 · (Edited by Moderator)
I do agree that an international release would have benefited them more. The Network is one of those things that sounded great, I mean it's definitely something they could do in years down the line but I think the timing of it now was bad and they obviously didn't think about how it would effect them on the financial side. It just astounds me how they've managed to get themselves into a rut like this. I'd thought Vince would have been smarter being the Business mind he is. I am really worried for the company now though, all these reports are making me concerned for the workers.
 
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