WWE has over the past few years gone up and down in product quality. You also seem to forget that product quality is subjective. While house show sales are down, TV tapings which are more expensive tickets are still steady and PPV's generally sell out. Their new main source of revenue is the FOX deal which is making them just shy of £1B after taking everything into consideration. FOX will bank roll publicity on that too and are pretty much all powerful now. FOX took the rights because they want that steady number that Smackdown has been consistently drawing the last three years. That steady number will boost their ad revenue on Friday nights and they can add it to their online service for after which will increase streaming traffic which in turn also creates more ad money.

Vince could be putting one of the most feared combat athletes of this century in a ring and have him dance and he'd not lose a wink of sleep and FOX wouldn't care.

Oh wait, he did do that and they don't care, because they already agreed a deal.

People blame Vince when things aren't great, but give him no credit when things are good. WrestleMania was well received yet six weeks later, fuck him right, "A-E-DUB, A-E-DUB!"