Wrestling/WWE News Round-Up (22nd - 29th July): Former Superstar gets offer to return, 2 writers released by WWE

#5. WWE 2nd Quarter Earnings Report

WWE Stats from Q2:- Network subs down on last year- Viewership down 11-14% (top 25 cable networks only down 8%)- live attendance down massively on last year pic.twitter.com/ElH6zWKske

— Straight Edge Wrestling (@SEW_Podcast) July 26, 2019

WWE released its earnings and revenue report for the 2nd quarter of 2019 on Tuesday. The revenue saw a decrease of 5% in comparison to the earnings from the 2nd quarter of 2018.

The WWE raked in a total of $268.9 Million in revenue and the drop has been attributed to a sharp decline in returns from live events, media and merchandising. While the company has experienced a noticeable fall in its financial gains, its digital platform has thrived in Q2.

WWE's Social Media follower count saw a 10% hike to reach 1.2 billion. 324 million hours of content was consumed across all digital outlets, which was up by 22% along with a 17% jump in total video views, which came up to 9 billion.

Vince McMahon commented on the report, "During the quarter, we made progress on key strategic initiatives. We completed content distribution agreements in key international markets, prepared for the next phase of our WWE Network service, and achieved steady improvement in engagement metrics. As indicated previously, we remain excited about the future, particularly with our debut on Fox in October."

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#6. Vince McMahon reveals why he hired Eric Bischoff and Paul Heyman

The announcement of Eric Bischoff and Paul Heyman as Executive Directors of SmackDown Live and Raw respectively has had an air of uncertainty about it. It's a known fact that every decision goes through Vince McMahon and many fans believed that Bischoff and Heyman were merely given titular roles without any actual power.

However, backstage updates in recent weeks suggest that both the veterans will enjoy the most authority after McMahon.

During the Q2 report call, McMahon disclosed the reasons behind why he got his former rivals on board while also hinting that he could be gradually stepping away from his most prized creation.

“One the things that we’ve done is hire two Executive Directors, one for Raw and one for SmackDown and in doing so, it allows me to look at a longer-range story – our standpoint and also spend more time on talent development and not get into the weeds as much as I had to do in the past. That is a really, really good thing for a long-term as well as short-term. Actually, we’ve seen a big result already.

McMahon painted a promising picture about Heyman and Bischoff's roles as he stated that they would be given 'a lot of latitude' while working as Executive Directors. He backed them to be successful by relying on their experience in the business and their long-range point of view.