Despite Furloughs and Jobs Lost, the WWE Is Considered an Essential Business?

I have found myself, in the last few weeks, being drawn back into the WWE bubble because, with the Chris Benoit documentary and the current COVID-19 pandemic, it has oddly enough been a fitting time to examine how the “essential” company treats its employees—an issue that has previously caught the attention of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight and, like many of our country’s issues, has been put into sharp relief lately.

Earlier in the week, Flordia Governor Ron DeSantis, who has been fumbling taking care of his state during this pandemic in a critical way, announced that the WWE would be deemed an “essential business” and be allowed to film shows at two Florida locations. Following that announcement from DeSantis, the wrestling company announced it would be “reducing executive and board member compensation, decreasing operating expenses, cutting talent expenses, third-party staffing and consulting and deferring spend on the build out of the company’s new headquarters for at least six months,” according to Yahoo News.

Despite that news, more than two dozen members of the WWE roster and/or backstage producers have lost their jobs. Also, we’ve seen that high roster talent with pre-existing conditions, like Roman Reigns, have the ability to pull out of events for safety. However, how many athletes in this job will have the freedom to do that, pre-existing conditions or no?

DeSantis says in the above video that it’s been a long time since we’ve had “new content” when it comes to sports, and yes, that is a bummer. I like sports, and I think sports gatherings can be important. I also think, for athletes who are getting paid per-game, this will be hard for them if they are not in a financially stable place, which is also unfortunate. However, I also do not think the need for content is so high that we need to risk anyone.

While Dr. Anthony Fauci, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director and key member of the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force, has said there is a way for sporting events to come back for the summer, I think it’s important to remind everyone that it is April—mid April.

Flordia, DeSantis, and the WWE are all trying to push forward in a state that, according to the Miami Herald, is trying to go back to normalcy despite rising death tolls.

“Florida, a state of about 20 million, has received test results for more than 200,000 — a rate of roughly 1 test per 100 residents,” the Herald says, “But the scope of Florida’s outbreak remains unclear due to an undefined backlog of pending test results and a lack of antibody testing, which can help determine whether someone was previously exposed to the novel coronavirus.”

And it’s not just the WWE, apparently. Their competitor, All Elite Wrestling, announced on Twitter Tuesday that it is still planning to hold its event and says it would heed “the latest guidance of national and global health authorities.”

Considering the McMahon family are Trump supporters, Trump has placed WWE CEO Vince McMahon on a panel tasked with advising him on dealing with the coronavirus’ economic fallout (really), and matriarch Linda McMahon is Chairwoman of America First Action, a pro-Trump Super PAC, despite her multiple failures to gain elected office, there is an agenda at play that is putting profit and “entertainment” before safety.

(via Yahoo News, image: screengrab)

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