The COVID-19 coronavirus has shut down Major League Baseball, the NBA, and the NHL—but not World Wrestling Entertainment.
Florida has deemed the WWE an “essential service,” which will allow the sports entertainment giant to continue filming live events at its training facility in Orlando. The company aired Monday Night Raw live from the facility last night. Two more live programs are slated for this week.
Florida issued the order Thursday, saying employees at professional sports and media production with a national audience can continue “only if the location is closed to the general public.”
(WWE has been airing matches without an audience for several weeks, including its biggest Pay-Per-View of the year, WrestleMania, which aired April 4–5.)
The move has caused more confusion than Steiner Math to many people around the country, especially given Florida’s “safer at home” order, which went into effect on April 3.
Some have noted that former WWE CEO Linda McMahon ran the Small Business Administration until last March. (She now chairs a pro-Trump super PAC.) WWE, in mid-2018, signed a five-year, $1 billion deal with Fox to air Smackdown, bringing two hours of live event programming to the network every week of the year. It also renewed its deal with NBCUniversal that year, keeping Raw on USA Network at a higher price.
“We believe it is now more important than ever to provide people with a diversion from these hard times,” WWE said in a statement. “We are producing content on a closed set with only essential personnel in attendance following appropriate guidelines while taking additional precautions to ensure the health and wellness of our performers and staff.”
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