|
The one "perk" WWE gives its contracted performers is a downside guarantee. Which in it's simplest form is "if we don't book you often enough to get X number of dollars through gate, buys (in the old days) etc....we'll pay you the downside instead"
So it does at least give talent some guaranteed money in the door even if they go for a spell of not being on the road. But my understanding is that the downside for sitting at home is substantially less than if they were on the road with any degree of regularity.
Even in the pre-pandemic days, before the cruiserweight division was merged with NXT the cruisers were getting badly fucked because they'd be brought to Raw and SmackDown tapings but not always get booked, and only two of them would be on the road at a time for the token Cruiserweight Title match at a house show. The rest of the division was home from Wednesday-Sunday the rest of the time with no money coming in....and they had to pay for travel, expenses etc to get to TV. So they were all barely making anything after the downside.
|