While WWE is the top professional wrestling company in the world and always seems to be in great financial shape, there have been rumblings this year from wrestlers about video game royalty check payments being significantly down this year.
In the May 12 Wrestling Observer Newsletter, it is reported that unless you are John Cena and (the recently departed) CM Punk, video game royalty payouts "are the biggest supplemental income the performers have" and so lower payments from sales of WWE 2K14 are a real cause for concern.
The Wrestling Observer reports that "three major names" in WWE who are close to John Cena's level indicated that "their video game checks were in the $10,000 to $15,000 range, and two years ago they were $70,000 to more than $100,000."
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The Observer continues to say that while a royalty check in the $75,000 range was expected for video game sales in the first quarter of the year, the majority of the wrestlers received payments of $11,900. This caused many performers to "freak out" because the royalty payments for the 2014 Royal Rumble and Elimination Chamber PPV events were also down from previous levels and they didn't want to see a trend of getting paid less for their services.
These lower royalty payments also have caused some speculation that "WWE is making up for business losses and network losses by underpaying everyone on both royalties and discretionary income," says The Observer.
With that said, The Observer also says that this low video game royalty payout was merely for the first quarter ended 3/31/14 and that "supposedly the money will even out and a far bigger than usual second quarter check will be coming to make up the difference, both to the company, and to talent."
(Credit: The Wrestling Observer)
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