How to Compete With Companies Much Bigger Than You: A Lesson From Pro Wrestling’s Talent Wars
Every industry has its giants.
In pro wrestling, the gravitational forces are WWE (TKO) and AEW — global operations with bigger checks, bigger platforms, and decades of built-in cultural equity.
If you’re a smaller promotion, you’re not beating them on size. You’re not beating them on name recognition. And you’re definitely not beating them on payroll.
So the question becomes: how do you compete with companies that are structurally bigger than you in every way?
Pro wrestling offers a surprisingly clear answer — and it starts with understanding what talent actually values.
Two Variables Determine Whether Talent Stays or Goes
Across any talent-driven business — wrestling, media, sales, entertainment — the decision matrix is astonishingly consistent:
Money
Miles (time, lifestyle, work/life balance)
Promotions obsess over “miles” because it’s an easy lever: Better schedules. More time at home. Less burnout. It’s easy to focus here because ‘less miles’ saves the company money as well.
TNA’s 1-week-on / 2-weeks-off model has been a real competitive advantage for them - attracting talent they may not be able to get otherwise at the rate they pay.
But on the money side, here’s the real story:
Yes, WWE has merch royalties. Yes, there are toy deals, licensing splits, and sometimes gate participation. AEW mirrors a lot of it.
Those are legacy table-stakes buckets — static, standardized, and rarely customized.
What almost no one does is innovate beyond those fixed systems:
No individual upside planning
No personalized business strategy
No structured growth support
No modern incentive design
No operator whose job is to expand a wrestler’s total earning power
That’s the opening and where a smaller promotion can flip the board.
The Strategic Unlock: A Talent Business Manager
Create a Talent Business Manager — a full-time operator dedicated to growing the business of your roster.
Not an admin. Not a merch liaison. But a strategist whose mandate is to accelerate talent value while they’re under your umbrella.
This can sit under Talent Relations or Marketing. Either way, it becomes a force multiplier overnight.
What This Role Actually Does
The Business Manager’s core function: create structure, momentum, and upside for talent.
That includes:
Quarterly 1-on-1s for career, brand, and business planning
Transparent payout & royalty reviews (trust-building 101)
Business development — brand deals, agents, NIL crossovers, partner integrations
Social optimization & story strategy
Merch approach — drops, collabs, bundles, incentives
Off-screen revenue building — appearances, pricing, licensing, coaching
Brand positioning & narrative building
These are inputs that top stars often get individually- but midcarders never do, and veterans rarely have time for.
Give this support to the entire roster? Your retention curve changes immediately.
The Leverage Play: Modern Incentives
Big companies win with base pay. Small companies win with smart incentives tied to behavior and growth.
The highest leverage options in a live event / sports space:
Ticket referral bonuses
Streaming subscription rev-share
Tiered merch collaboration bonuses
A shared bonus pool tied to company-wide KPIs
These are low-cost but high-alignment mechanisms that turn talent into stakeholders instead of short-term contractors.
Why This Beats Outspending Bigger Competitors
You don’t win a talent war by trying to match WWE or AEW financially. But you can win by offering value they don’t offer:
Personalized career strategy
Direct attention and investment
Transparent economics
Incentives tied to real performance
Business growth infrastructure
The feeling that you matter in the building
That’s how a smaller promotion competes with giants.
Create an environment where walking away means walking away from real upside, not just a paycheck.
Cost vs. Return
Let’s keep it grounded.
Cost:
~$85K/year + incentive pool
Return:
5–10x in:
retention
morale
brand strength
merch and ticketflow
reduced turnover
better creative output
healthier locker room
stronger on-air product
This is one of the cheapest strategic unlocks in the industry — and it becomes a competitive advantage instantly.
The Lesson Beyond Wrestling
This isn’t just a wrestling insight. It’s a blueprint for any business trying to compete with companies much larger than itself.
You don’t win by matching their resources. You win by building systems they’re too big or too slow to implement.
A Talent Business Manager is exactly that kind of system, it can be a modern, scalable, people-first engine for growth.
If you're in Talent Relations or leading a roster-driven business and don't have a role like this?
Steal it, you’ll never go back.
