#3 The Pay Per View model
The WWE built its success through the 1980s until the late noughties on the power of the Pay Per View model. With the likes of Wrestlemania, The Royal Rumble, Summerslam, and Survivor Series being the spine in order to make this a success.
Also read: 5 Production techniques that UFC can learn from WWE
Despite their recent pivoting to make the WWE Network their focus, the WWE will always be known as the promotion to make regular PPVs as the best way to rake in lots of cash for marquee events. Wrestlemania I – the event that could have bankrupted the company – was the catalyst for this idea and its grand success is what kickstarted the PPV era for WWE.
The UFC has ripped off the same model to even greater success as Dana White and his business partners built numerous fight cards explicitly with the view to sell more PPVs and they have achieved such success by copying the WWE that a large portion of a great fighter’s income is tied into a percentage of the total PPV income.
