Vince McMahon Gets Blasted Over Controversial Twitch Decision

Vince McMahon is once again making the round on the news. There has been a lot of controversy over his latest decision, imposing directly over the daily lives of WWE Superstars.

Following the rise in popularity of the streaming service Twitch, a lot of WWE Superstars have been live-streaming gaming videos and during the stream. They answer a few questions from fans during this time.

They also get paid by the service for this since it attracts more famous personalities to the app. It turns out that Vince McMahon isn’t too comfortable with this. 

In a recent statement given to superstars, McMahon had informed them that all their Twitch accounts would be owned by WWE in 4 weeks. This would also turn in the major part of the revenues earned from that account to WWE.

Vince McMahon is against Superstars using their trademark names

The Superstars will receive a cut of the revenues, but that goes completely against their downside guarantees. McMahon has received a lot of flak over this decision of his.

Early in September, the Chairman and CEO of the company justified his decision. In a statement, he informed Superstars of the next course of action.

“Some of you are engaged with outside third parties using your name and likeness in ways that are detrimental to our company. It is imperative that these activities be terminated within the next 30 days (by Friday, October 2). Continued violations will result in fines, suspension, or termination at WWE’s discretion.”

If this statement stood true, then the trademark names of Superstars would be a problem to use. However, the terms of the takeover also mention that Superstars will have to inform WWE even if they use their own names for Twitch.

McMahon has been criticized by a former presidential candidate

In an interview with Wrestling Inc, Former Democratic Presidential Candidate Andrew Yang openly criticized this edict. He claimed that it went completely against some freedoms of the Superstars.

“A lot of it is that wrestlers are afraid to speak out, and I’ve had wrestlers past and present reach out to me and say that Vince has been getting away with the exploitation of wrestlers calling them independent contractors while controlling their activities for years and years,” said Yang. “A lot of it is just that they are a quasi-monopoly, and wrestlers fear that if they do try and unionize or organize in any way that Vince doesn’t like, that it will never work again.

Yang is determined to attack this edict should Joe Biden be elected as President in the near future. Vince McMahon is standing on ice. Only time will tell how thin that ice is.