No folks this thread is not about the lady from Designing Women. Even though that itself was a good show and one we all remember. No folks this is about the former owner of TNA (Total Nonstop Action). This Dixie Carter.
A few years ago I did a rise and fall of Verne Gagne here and how he had built an empire in the mid-west wrestling scene from the AWA that included toys , massive merchandise of wrestlers and a TV film. Plus Verne had his own wrestling school where he received a cut from the workers there. His school trained numerous legends and one was Ric Flair. Of course like any empire his crumbled to dust by 1990.
Now lets go look at Dixie Carter...
Dixie was born in 1964 to parents Bob and Janice Carter and in an old Sports Illustrated article from 2013 , it detailed her life growing up. Dixie would go on to college and graduate with a Bachelor of Business Administration degree. Her career would see her go to Levenson & Hill (a sports marketing firm) and go onto becoming a VP at age 32. She would soon go on and establish her own business in Nashville concentrating on sports and music representation.
Around the year 2002 , the Pro Wrestling business suddenly had a drastic shrinkage. Where there was once 3 brands competing across the United States as a whole (WCW , WWF and ECW) 2 of the companies went out of business. The WWF would swallow both and create a monopoly from 2001. Other companies tried to expand to fill the gap. In California , Rob Black's Xtreme Pro Wrestling (XPW) decided to branch out and acquire the ECW syndication network package. ECW once had a nationwide syndication package. Black even moved the company to the East Coast. But that failed once his legal issues came up and XPW was outta business by 2003.
Fox Sports was approached by Jimmy Hart and Hulk Hogan who shot a run of shows called XWF (Xcitement Wrestling Federation). The company shot a series of shows at Universal Studios where WCW Worldwide used to film at (and where TNA would later go). Anyhow the show was unable to get a TV order and after a series of house shows folded. Hogan would go back to WWF/E in 2002.
But there was a long shot in the failed landscape of pro wrestling company attempts. Jeff Jarrett and his father Jerry Jarrett sit at the kitchen table in 2001 and discussed putting a promotion together. Jeff himself brought up how he really didn't want to make a living traveling outside the United States anymore (he had been black balled by WWF at this point) and he debated retiring . But as this video shows us...his then wife Jill convinced him to do this.
Jeff & Jerry as the video brings up launched the company in June 2002 and with no cable companies interested , they decided on going to a risky venue of weekly PPV concept. One person told them that a weekly PPV concept could see them get 50,000+ PPV buys a week . They also decided to approach the NWA (National Wrestling Alliance) to use their titles. The NWA had struggled for a number of years since the relationship with WCW had ended and they hadn't been seen on a national level since the failed 1998 storyline in WWF.
So the company became NWA-Total Non-Stop Action . Which was a move to give them some legit credibility with established titles. Everything seemed to be fine of course as Toby Keith appeared as well as the Tennessee Titans football team in an early show. But after the 4th PPV , both Jarrett's received terrible news. The person who gave them the early estimates of the 1st shows was wrong. They hadn't earned 50,000+ buys each show...instead the company had did 10,000-20,000+ each week and suddenly things wasn't good.
The company was so bleak that if no one came in , the 5th show would have ended NWA-TNA right there. But Jeff Jarrett had a friend in Nashville he knew who could come in and buy a majority ownership of the company. Dixie Carter had been friends with the Jarrett's and soon met with her parents. Dixie's father had became a billionaire owner of Panda Energy and he had the pockets to buy a stake into the company. Panda bought a 72% stake into TNA and installed a number of executives and Dixie as President. Jeff Jarrett stayed on as Vice-President and kept his small stake in the company moving forward.
Without Dixie Carter , TNA dies in 2002 within 5 shows. But she convinced her parents that the pro wrestling landscape could have a company that was #2 to make money. Of course TNA as she claims was gonna lose money awhile til things got established better. As a whole no one knows exactly what TNA lost from 2002-2006 as no one knows exactly. But it was in millions range as the weekly PPV concept finally ended in 2004 and with Dixie's help they did Fox Sports awhile. Which its said TNA paid for that spot.
The Golden Era of TNA : 2005-2009
After the Fox Sports deal , Dixie really hit her prime as an executive. Where as both Jarrett's had tried back in 2002 to get TNA on a national cable network and failed ; Dixie in 2005 was able to secure a deal with Spike TV. Spike itself was stung by losing WWE TV rights back to USA Network and needed an alternative. So they signed a cheaper deal with NWA-TNA and decided to air the show in a 1 hour block on Saturday Nights. The show did better than expected and within months Spike moved the show to Thursday nights and gave it 2 hours.
As the ratings expanded and costs were cut filming weeks of shows at Orlando Studios in Florida , Dixie began signing overseas TV deals. These TV deals became a major success story for the company and showcased why Dixie Carter had been made President of the company. In all Impact would go on to air in 24 current markets overseas.
With an infusion of the company making cash on TV deals , merchandise and more ...they decided to start signing wrestlers. This would have a good and bad effect. By signing established stars like Kurt Angle , Christian , Booker T , Sting , Scott Steiner , and Kevin Nash ...the ratings did go above 1.0's for the 1st time. It also built a very big main event roster to mix with the home grown stars of AJ Styles , Jerry Lynn , Samoa Joe and more. Spike liked this move as the more stars the company brought in the better it gave them attention as a network.
During this time however another effect happened , The NWA itself was no longer really needed. The NWA board had started to object to TNA's moving the title to different people. One rumored objection was the idea that Jeff Jarrett would end his run as champion and pass the belt onto Christian. But the NWA objected. It was then that TNA ended their relationship with the NWA and rebranded the titles as TNA belts. The NWA sadly was never the same again.
TNA's success was so big that Midway Games decided to do a TNA Wrestling video game for them. The game sold 1.5 million copies and plans were made to do a sequel. But due to Midway as a company having financial problems the sequel never happened. Midway would close in 2010. Jeff Jarrett himself in an interview claimed that TNA had started turning profits in 2006/2007 and was doing good. This interview was in 2009.
Then as fast as Dixie's success launched...her failure began.
End of Part #1