Eric Bischoff has lived through his fair share of wrestling highs and lows, but he doesn't think TNA's current situation is like WCW's
On a recent edition of Bischoff on Wrestling, Bischoff said that he had to bite his tongue a little bit about TNA, but said he doesn't believe the numbers that value TNA at $40 million. He also had a pretty succinct description of the situation.
"Chaos. Shear chaos. I have been reading it like everyone else. I don’t have any inside information. I have to give my disclaimer here: I am currently involved in on-going litigation with TNA. I have to be a little bit judicious and careful about what I say. Anything that I am commenting on are things that are in the public domain, so to speak. The other day I read that somebody put a valuation on TNA of approximately $40 million. I have no idea where that number came from. Valuations when you’re selling a company or trying to get investors or an investor company. One of the hardest things to determine is valuation. Back when I was running WCW, when I was first given the responsibility to oversea WCW, it was a company that was grossing $24 million a year. Unfortunately it was losing $10 million in the process. Earlier this week someone said, “Well, the valuation of TNA is probably two times revenue.” Well, that valuation works if you’re profitable but if you’re losing like WCW was, $10 or $14 million a year on $24 million a year in revenue, I guaran-freaking-tee you that company would not have been valued at $40 million," said Bischoff.
Bischoff made sure to clarify that he sees the WCW and TNA situations as categorically different. Everything from the contracts TNA holds, brand power, and other assets lead him to believe that TNA doesn't have nearly the leverage of WCW in it's dying days.
“No, they are completely different from what I can see and what I’ve read. You look at the talent roster in TNA and many of them are under non-exclusive agreements. So, there’s no real value in those contractual agreements. There’s some talented people there, don’t get me wrong. This is in no way a derisive comment with regard to the talent. It’s not like acquiring TNA is going to allow you to just walk those agreements right over to a new company because they are non-exclusive. WWE doesn’t work that way. Trust me. I really don’t see any similarities. WCW was a very powerful brand. Even at the time it was acquired by WWE. TNA doesn’t have the luxury in the marketplace that WCW did. I don’t really see any similarities to be honest," Bischoff said.
You can hear the full episode below.
