Ultimately, yes, a business needs to expand. But having tracked WWE’s audience growth (or contraction), there is a strong case to be made that in Wrestling today more money is spent on the product by less fans than ever before, and that is not a bad thing, if you are making more money than ever before (which clearly the WWE is doing).
Back to my original take that Wrestling should be booked for Marks (not trying to argue it, but rather explain more fully):
Marks are the ones who are always going to tune in and be the constant, and spend the money. They are the ones who will shit on the product when it is bad, and get very into it when it is hot. When Marks are into the product, the show and therefore the talent get over because the audience brings the talent and characters to life in ways the casual fan gravitates to. CM Punk, Daniel Bryan, Rusev Day, Becky Lynch, just to name a few of the recent cases of this.
“Marks” (not a bad term, despite what some would have you believe), have time and time again got behind somebody and made them feel more important or more over than where they were slated to be.
And that has a real impact on how casual fans view the product. When the crowd is hot, they think it means good and they are more likely to get invested. The casual fans defer to the “Mark” as the taste-makers.
If a company were to book more to Marks, it would be satisfying the core fan base, which in turn, would make the product seem more favorable by those watching all the time. When a casual fan tunes in and sees a hot crowd, or goes online and sees people into something or someone, they are more likely to be drawn in than when they see criticisms all the time.
The YES chant was the epitome of this and that was not a design of the WWE booking, but a genuine reaction by Marks who wanted to see more of Bryan. It was Marks who made it a thing all on their own, which caught fire, just like Becky right now. She wasn’t the chosen one by creative, she was chosen by the people who love wrestilng, and in that reaction to her, casual fans have rallied behind her too.
All the while, if you continue to cater to (or milk) the core audience which are the ones willing to spend on you in the first place, you satisfy your business objectives and have a more likely shot at drawing in others by word of mouth, or interest in something receiving praise, not ridicule.