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The history of publicity stunts and rating ploys for WWE shows that Vince McMahon would do just about anything to get a strong television rating. McMahon proved this during the summer of 2008 when WWE was struggling with not reaching their ideal ratings for the weekly Raw show. The concept of a wrestling-related sweepstakes saw WWE offering money to fans watching at the right time.
Vince was even on television weekly as the one running the contest and calling fans. The entire idea was done to make fans feel they had to watch shows from start to finish. Viewers remembered the relevant information and would receive random calls to win money when asked for the password. Unfortunately, the experiment failed badly and deserves to be considered a historically desperate flop.
Bad Ratings Caused Vince McMahon To Come Up With Million Dollar Mania
Vince McMahon fell into a bad habit of trying to come up with any quick ratings grab idea in the latter half of the 2000s. WWE witnessed a ratings decline from the Attitude Era to the Ruthless Aggression Era, and that grew worse most years as the decade went on. McMahon tried things like a fake limo explosion murdering him or a long soap opera story of him having a mystery child on the WWE roster to get ratings up.
WWE executive Bruce Prichard said that the McMahon Million Dollar Mania concept started during a creative meeting. Vince wanted his team to name something people badly wanted that could entice viewers. Prichard claimed he pitched the idea of free gas for a year when gas prices were quite high at the time and became a national news story. McMahon listened to that idea, but he instead talked about giving away a million bucks instead since that all came back to money.
WWE hoped that creating a system where fans would pay attention to the show and try to win a million bucks for watching it would boost ratings. The advertising for this was as big as anything WWE did during that era, outside of the annual WrestleMania promotional work. Vince truly believed in this idea bringing more viewers to the product.
McMahon Million Dollar Mania Didn't Go Down As WWE Intended
The real work for WWE was trying to find an effective manner to put Vince McMahon’s idea into a real concept. McMahon cut a promo to hype it up, reminding fans that “it’s all about the money” and to tune back in for a revolutionary concept. However, WWE just came up with their own version of a sweepstake for fans watching the product.
McMahon’s Million Dollar Mania started with the concept of fans leaving their information to be called if selected. Vince himself called random fans and asked for the password that was shown at various points earlier in the night. The segments were a disaster with many unexpected mistakes coming during live segments while McMahon awkwardly reacted with his old man glasses on.
Many of the calls ended with the fan not knowing the password and missing out on free money. The most memorable call featured someone “Rick Rolling” Vince back when that was the craze by playing the song “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley. A handful of fans won six figures from the contest, but WWE didn’t get much back from their investment.
