while the station owner passed on doing business with Crockett that day, the outfit worked. The two maintained a casual friendship for years afterward, with Turner even inviting Crockett to a party he held on his yacht for the 1977 America’s Cup time trials.
That’s why Barnett decided Crockett was the only man who could bail McMahon out. He had the money, and Turner liked him.
Once he was approached, in March 1985, there was no hesitation in Crockett’s reply. TBS meant national exposure and a chance to break into the hyper-lucrative arena of national ad sales. Madison Avenue advertising agencies wouldn’t look at a tiny Charlotte promoter, but they would have to do business with one that had a top-rated TBS show that was capable of reaching 80 million homes.
It was a win-win situation for just about everyone. Vince got out of Georgia without losing a cent. Turner got McMahon out of his hair. And Jim Crockett Promotions, already the most successful southern wrestling company, became the second-biggest promotional outfit in the country. 1 The only odd man out in the sweepstakes was Bill Watts, who got dropped from TBS as soon as Crockett’s deal was done.
Watts was sick about being outplayed. But what could he do? Unless he wanted to run up a white flag—something the combative Cowboy wasn’t close to considering—his choice was clear: He had to go national, like Crockett and McMahon, to compete.
In early 1986, Watts quit the Irish McNeal Boy’s Club in Shreveport and moved his operation to the six-thousand-seat Convention Center on the Tulsa fairgrounds to give the show a bigger, airier feel for television. Then he rechristened his Mid-South Wrestling company the Universal Wrestling Federation and sent his announcer, Jim Ross, on the road to sell it. Ross was a remarkable salesman. By late 1986, he got Watts into seventy major markets, up from a dozen the year before. But the size was deceiving. Most of the deals Ross struck were barter arrangements: The station got his show for free and most of the commercial revenue that came with it, while Watts got exposure to promote his arena shows.
The problem was that almost overnight, the UWF became the toughest driving territory around. Its wrestlers were driving up to forty-five hundred miles a week, and some were so tired that they had to take heavy doses of speed to get to the next gig. When the UWF branched as far west as Los Angeles, and as far east as Philadelphia, Watts had to start paying for his forty wrestlers to fly. Then he leased space in a gleaming office tower in Dallas, which he reasoned could serve as a way station between the coasts and present a better image. But week after week, he was paying the wearying price of being the third horse in a three-horse race. In better days, he could put on a shoestring show at the Arkansas fairgrounds and gross $70,000. Now he was playing unprofitable midlevel arenas like the nine-thousand-seat Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles and taking a bath on it.
Maybe the Cowboy could have made it work with more time. But just as he was starting to expand, the oil-producing nations of OPEC caused an international glut by stepping up production. As a result, the economies of Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas got hammered. Not only were Watts’s ticket buyers defaulting on their mortgages, but four bank failures in Oklahoma meant that the loan pool for risky new businesses was drier than a used Texas well. Watts was trapped. At the very moment he was having trouble selling tickets in Los Angeles, he’d lost his ability to sell out Oklahoma City and Tulsa. The regional wrestling empire that had made him $2 million in 1985 was hemorrhaging $50,000 a week. He had to take out a $20,000-a-month mortgage on his home just to stay afloat. As the Cowboy would say later, “When you’re losing fifty grand a week out of your ass like that, you’re either lying or you’re dying if you claim it doesn’t give you
That’s why Barnett decided Crockett was the only man who could bail McMahon out. He had the money, and Turner liked him.
Once he was approached, in March 1985, there was no hesitation in Crockett’s reply. TBS meant national exposure and a chance to break into the hyper-lucrative arena of national ad sales. Madison Avenue advertising agencies wouldn’t look at a tiny Charlotte promoter, but they would have to do business with one that had a top-rated TBS show that was capable of reaching 80 million homes.
It was a win-win situation for just about everyone. Vince got out of Georgia without losing a cent. Turner got McMahon out of his hair. And Jim Crockett Promotions, already the most successful southern wrestling company, became the second-biggest promotional outfit in the country. 1 The only odd man out in the sweepstakes was Bill Watts, who got dropped from TBS as soon as Crockett’s deal was done.
Watts was sick about being outplayed. But what could he do? Unless he wanted to run up a white flag—something the combative Cowboy wasn’t close to considering—his choice was clear: He had to go national, like Crockett and McMahon, to compete.
In early 1986, Watts quit the Irish McNeal Boy’s Club in Shreveport and moved his operation to the six-thousand-seat Convention Center on the Tulsa fairgrounds to give the show a bigger, airier feel for television. Then he rechristened his Mid-South Wrestling company the Universal Wrestling Federation and sent his announcer, Jim Ross, on the road to sell it. Ross was a remarkable salesman. By late 1986, he got Watts into seventy major markets, up from a dozen the year before. But the size was deceiving. Most of the deals Ross struck were barter arrangements: The station got his show for free and most of the commercial revenue that came with it, while Watts got exposure to promote his arena shows.
The problem was that almost overnight, the UWF became the toughest driving territory around. Its wrestlers were driving up to forty-five hundred miles a week, and some were so tired that they had to take heavy doses of speed to get to the next gig. When the UWF branched as far west as Los Angeles, and as far east as Philadelphia, Watts had to start paying for his forty wrestlers to fly. Then he leased space in a gleaming office tower in Dallas, which he reasoned could serve as a way station between the coasts and present a better image. But week after week, he was paying the wearying price of being the third horse in a three-horse race. In better days, he could put on a shoestring show at the Arkansas fairgrounds and gross $70,000. Now he was playing unprofitable midlevel arenas like the nine-thousand-seat Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles and taking a bath on it.
Maybe the Cowboy could have made it work with more time. But just as he was starting to expand, the oil-producing nations of OPEC caused an international glut by stepping up production. As a result, the economies of Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas got hammered. Not only were Watts’s ticket buyers defaulting on their mortgages, but four bank failures in Oklahoma meant that the loan pool for risky new businesses was drier than a used Texas well. Watts was trapped. At the very moment he was having trouble selling tickets in Los Angeles, he’d lost his ability to sell out Oklahoma City and Tulsa. The regional wrestling empire that had made him $2 million in 1985 was hemorrhaging $50,000 a week. He had to take out a $20,000-a-month mortgage on his home just to stay afloat. As the Cowboy would say later, “When you’re losing fifty grand a week out of your ass like that, you’re either lying or you’re dying if you claim it doesn’t give you
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