Chris Harrington of IndeedWrestling.com who covers a lot of financial statistics for WWE managed to get his hands on the Hulk Hogan WCW contract from 1998 and it’s a contract which probably not many – if anyone at all – will ever get closer to it.
The contract, which started on May 29, 1998 and valid for four years, had a whopping $2 million signing bonus which was paid just 14 days after Hogan put pen to paper.
Hulk was contracted to wrestle at 6 WCW pay-per-views each year and had to be the headliner. As a compensation of appearing in these pay-per-views, Hogan received either 15% of all domestic PPV sales or $675,000 guarantee…per event! Hogan got $1,350,000 as an advance of the PPV guarantee payment every July, November, and February of each year under contract. In addition to this guarantee, the Hulkster also received compensation based on the buy rate, with $250,000 minimum per event up to $1,750,000.
For his Nitro and Thunder appearances, Hogan got 25% of the gross arena ticket revenues in which he appears and wrestles and each check had to be no less than $25,000 per event. As part of the deal he had to appear at 16 other television tapings per year at no additional cost to WCW. For non-televised house shows, Hogan also got 25% of the gross arena ticket revenues which had to be paid 30 days after the events.
If Hogan had to travel on WCW business, he had to receive first-class travel, first-class suite at a hotel, limo transportation, and $175 per diem per day. Hogan also had some crazy licensing deals for merchandise and anything that had his name attached to it.
You can read the contract in full below.
Discover more from Wrestling-Online.com
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.