I agree that it has largely been a success for WWE in a business sense. Wrestling inevitably began to decline in popularity following Wrestlemania XVII, which represented the very pinnacle of the Attitude era, and I think the brand extension and the different marketing opportunities it opened up for the company has helped it to offset some of the financial losses that came with that decline.
Speaking as a fan however, from a creative perspective the brand extension has been much more of a mixed bag, and has arguably created more problems for the company than it has solved. On the one hand, in terms of trying to come up with new gimmicks and more compelling storylines, as well as trying to distribute their roster evenly across all three shows, I believe it has been a resounding failure for WWE, and has contributed to an overall decline in the quality of their programming. As noted above, WWE have yet to strike a good balance between all three shows, and they're unlikely to do so in the near future, because they're overall roster of talent simply isn't deep enough. It also leaves the company at the mercy of circumstance. I mean, can you imagine the disarray that Smackdown would be thrown into if Batista were to injure himself again? Which isn't an unlikely prospect by the way (Im amazed he didn't tear every muscle in his body at Wrestlemania, considering he went completely all-out to put on a great match).
I don't think that the quality of their programming has gone down necessarily because of the brand extension but more so because of the lack of competition. With the acquisition of WCW and ECW, major wrestling in America was a monopoly. With less pressure on the creative team to have good storylines, the writing became more lackadaisical. I'm not saying that the brand extension has nothing to do with the decline in programming, but I just don't believe that it has as big of a contribution as you believe. Monopolizing the wrestling industry was about the worst thing that could have happened. That problem still stands today. Sorry TNA and ROH, you're not competition by any means.
Speaking as a fan however, from a creative perspective the brand extension has been much more of a mixed bag, and has arguably created more problems for the company than it has solved. On the one hand, in terms of trying to come up with new gimmicks and more compelling storylines, as well as trying to distribute their roster evenly across all three shows, I believe it has been a resounding failure for WWE, and has contributed to an overall decline in the quality of their programming. As noted above, WWE have yet to strike a good balance between all three shows, and they're unlikely to do so in the near future, because they're overall roster of talent simply isn't deep enough. It also leaves the company at the mercy of circumstance. I mean, can you imagine the disarray that Smackdown would be thrown into if Batista were to injure himself again? Which isn't an unlikely prospect by the way (Im amazed he didn't tear every muscle in his body at Wrestlemania, considering he went completely all-out to put on a great match).
I don't think that the quality of their programming has gone down necessarily because of the brand extension but more so because of the lack of competition. With the acquisition of WCW and ECW, major wrestling in America was a monopoly. With less pressure on the creative team to have good storylines, the writing became more lackadaisical. I'm not saying that the brand extension has nothing to do with the decline in programming, but I just don't believe that it has as big of a contribution as you believe. Monopolizing the wrestling industry was about the worst thing that could have happened. That problem still stands today. Sorry TNA and ROH, you're not competition by any means.