Career Mirror -- By Terry Chung

The glass breaks, and the theme music sounds, a shadowy figure stalks his way to ringside, but who is this mystery man? As he makes the final descent to the squared circle, the crowd erupts into frenzy. The mystery man is none other than Stone Cold Steve Austin, the reigning WWF heavyweight champion.

Professional wrestling, or the male-soap opera, is a billion-dollar a year industry. But what makes this game of human chess so popular? One reason could be the marketing. Fifteen per cent of the gross cash that the World Wrestling Federation takes in goes to advertising. "Our goal is to turn the casual fan (a fan that watches, but one who is not really intuned to it) into a die-hard fan," says Bret Hart, marketing and promotions representative for the WWF. But what it is about wrestling that makes it one of the most watched wrestling promotions in the world? "It's a male soap-opera, and it's not just put on, these guys are busting their butt every time they are out there," says Hart.

The WWF goes on tour to different cities, like the show held in Calgary back in September, and showcases its talent every week on Monday Night Raw, where wrestling fans all over Calgary and the world gather around the T.V. to watch two men pummel the hell out of each other. But what goes into setting up for a professional wrestling match? Hart says that it takes around two to eight guys to do ring setup, and the roadcrew is on the road for 250 consecutive days looking at different buildings to house the events. When asked about rival promotion WCW (World Championship Wrestling), Hart says "That's not really my area, but WCW goes for an older crowd, our target audience is the younger generation. The WWF is a bit more on the edge with the storylines, we used to have good-guys against bad-guys, and now it's all intertwined."

Since he started with the WWF three years ago, Hart says it has been wonderful experience. But it wasn't always like that. Hart worked many small jobs before making it to the big time, "I went to school, got my MBA then I worked for a lot of small promotions," he said. Hart eventually climbed the corporate ladder, working in motorsports for six years, promoting monster truck rallies. Now working for the WWF, Hart says it's like being in the big leagues, and that it adds so much respectability to the job.

But what exactly does this Marketing and Promotions man do? "Put butts in seats," says Hart jokingly. "My job, is to build publicity for the product via advertisements through print and/or television. We scale houses, which means we go to the arena, and figure out how many tickets to sell, and for what price to sell them at," he said. One of the bad things about his profession, according to Hart, is travelling. "I'm always on the road, I work every weekend, and holidays, but it's all worth it. I have no problem working out of a suitcase," he said.

So who does Hart, who hails from Washington D.C., admire when it comes to sports promotions? Why it is none other than WWF owner, Vince McMahon. "Not just because he's my boss, but he's a visionary, he knows how to market an event. He knows how to promote his wrestlers," he said.