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Well the financial year has not been released yet for the WWE, but the estimates earlier in the year was that they would hit profits of $30+ million for the year. Only 98/99, 99/00, and 01/02 will be close in terms of profits. 00/01 would have been the biggest profit making year, but that year had the XFL losses for the company, and even with the losses they still made $16 million that year.
The brand extension has allowed them to run more international dates, and those usually do good business, so in that sense its helping.
In terms of losing guys to make another promotion, listen no TV people are going to pick up a new wrestling promotion because they have Billy Gunn or Rikishi. Thos guys are menaingless. The guys who have a chance of creating a stir for TV execs are the major stars, and that means Austin, Rock, Hogan and to a lesser extent Goldberg. If you had soem of those guys, you might get a promotion going, but even with them there are no guarantees because wrestling isn't doing that well anymore.
If you go back to one roster, a lot of guys will get released, they will run out of feuds faster and they wont create any new stars. The guys like HHH, Taker, HBk and co will still be on top, only now they will take up top spots on two shows, instead of being split over two shows. Young guys coming up will have a harder time getting through. At least now you have situations where guys like Benjamin, Cade, Jindrak and Dupree are being put in key spots out of necessity, if you have one roster there would be no panic to create new stars.
Fewer stars were created when there was one roster. Even a guy like Kurt Angle wasn't really given a chance to truley be a top guy until after the brand extension, ditto for Benoit and Eddie.
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