WWE shocked the world on Tuesday when the company issued a statement announcing that Eric Bischoff had been removed from his position as Executive Director of SmackDown, and Bruce Prichard was picked to be his replacement.
When SmackDown debuted on FOX the show managed to draw 3.869 million viewers, but the following week viewership dropped to 2.899 million viewers.
Justing Barrasso of Sports Illustrated is reporting that Bischoff getting fired had to due to with Vince McMahon’s reaction to the ratings, and it was meant as a way to send a message to stockholders that WWE is committed to the future success of SmackDown on FOX.
It was also noted that Bischoff was never given creative authority on SmackDown.
Originally he was meant to oversee creative, but multiple sources confirmed that his directive was to simply observe.
According to the report Bischoff was classified as an “at will employee” so he is not required to adhere to a 90 day no compete clause.
Eric Bischoff was living in an apartment in Stamford, CT while working for WWE, but he’s expected to move back to Wyoming.
[…] was recently reported that Eric Bischoff getting fired had to do with Vince McMahon’s reaction to SmackDown’s ratings dropping […]