TNA Rumors: Who is Financing TNA Wrestling?
By Josh.0
The mystery surrounding who provided the funding for the recent Bound for Glory PPV is only a small part of why TNA is so relevant right now.
TNA President Billy Corgan knew that this past weekend’s Bound for Glory PPV was going to happen and confirmed his confidence during an interview with The Dan Le Batard Show last week:
"“We have been in the same situation the last three times we have done this and we have had a ‘Music City Miracle’ three times in a row, so I am kind of counting on a fourth one. I don’t expect anybody is going to do anything too ridiculous to make sure that [Sunday’s PPV] doesn’t happen. It would put a lot of people out of work.”"
As Corgan predicted, the show went on as planned. But how? The wrestling world is well aware of the money problems surrounding TNA, and PPVs are not inexpensive to produce and profits are never guaranteed, especially for any wrestling promotion not named WWE. As of now we still don’t know who opened up their wallets for TNA as a report in the New York Post would only refer to them as “an unidentified third party”. Drama! Intrigue!
Many members of the IWC speculated that it was WWE who has provided the cash and Triple H would possibly appear at the taping to announce their conquest of yet another foe. While this appears not to be the case, in truth this would be quite easy to do since it would be almost impossible for other investors to challenge Vince McMahon if he decided TNA was worth owning. When asked by Dan Le Batard how to compete with Vince in this area, Corgan simply replied, “you don’t.”
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Kayfabe has been broken and now we are left with a genuine mystery which makes the entire scenario all the more exciting. When Shane McMahon “purchased” WCW in March 2001 it began the Invasion angle which would dominate the WWE landscape for most of the year and bring about incredible financial success, not to mention long-term storyline possibilities. The InVasion PPV in July 2001 still holds the distinction as having one of the highest non-major event buy rates in history.
The prevailing theory surrounding Bound for Glory is that the power company Panda Energy International is keeping TNA afloat. This makes the most sense for two reasons: first, Panda Energy is owned and operated by TNA Chairman Dixie Carter’s family, so they obviously have more than enough reasons to help their daughter succeed. Second, Panda had a 72% majority ownership stake in TNA in 2002, which was upgraded to 100% in 2015 when they bought the remaining shares from the previous President and CEO, Jerry “Jeff” Jarrett. In April 2016, Panda divested themselves of their ownership and shifted their stake entirely to Dixie, giving her sole control of the promotion as Owner. Corgan was brought in over the summer and personally funded the company’s last three PPVs, a feat which earned him the title of TNA President.
While being funded by a rock star may sound like a recipe for success, the drama surrounding the future of TNA is far from over. We don’t know for sure who is financing TNA at this point but something tells me that Vince’s ego wouldn’t have allowed such a high profile PPV to happen without fans knowing he was responsible.
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Corgan confirmed that talks to sell the company – possibly to WWE – will resume this week.