Ex-WWE Talent Claims Company Held Back Royalty Payments
Recently, Kevin Nash accused WWE under TKO of cutting his royalties in half.
Speaking on his Kliq This podcast, Big Daddy Cool expressed frustrations over the mishandling of payments for the sale of nWo merchandise.
The Hall of Famer revealed that the promotion has limited transparency and replaced royalty breakdowns with vague lump sum amounts.
Nash’s frustrations have seemingly peaked, as the 66-year-old even threatened to sue the company if the issue was not resolved.
When I was making huge money in my royalties, it was broken down. It would say, ‘nWo t-shirts, nWo women t-shirts.’ Now it says, ‘nWo intellectual property,’ and there’s just a number. That’s all it is. It’s gonna be a forensic accounting, and I’ll f***ing sue them, and that’s just the way it goes.
Stevie Richards Corroborates WWE’s Royalty Payment Issue With Personal Experience
Former WWE and ECW star Stevie Richards added weight to WWE’s royalty payment, claiming that the company has radically altered its policy surrounding royalties.
Speaking on The Stevie Richards Show podcast, the 54-year-old shared his own experience.
They get royalty checks. Oh my god. I have to call WWE. I haven’t gotten a royalty check in probably 10 years, and I’m definitely not getting one now.
He revealed that wrestlers receive only one-third of one percent from merchandise sales, and that the company further deducts its own costs, leaving wrestlers with peanuts.
The percentage wrestlers get from merchandise is about one-third of one percent. There’s a lot of zeros before that one. And here’s the trick—it’s not based on gross, it’s based on net. That means after they deduct all their costs, you get a tiny slice of what’s left.
Richards also compared how royalty checks earned through video games have gone through major changes as far as earning an income is concerned.
Even for video games—it’s crazy. You could be on the main roster, featured in the DLC, and still not get a royalty check. Back in the day, one check from a video game could be $35,000 or $40,000, which wasn’t bad. But now with 80 or more people in a game, including guys like Roman Reigns and The Undertaker, that number drops to maybe $5,000. That’s death to your royalty check by a thousand paper cuts—or maybe 300. [H/T: Ringside News]
With former wrestlers speaking about unfair practices in royalty payments, WWE and TKO could face a major controversy in the coming weeks.
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