Orange County, FL Mayor Deems WWE To Be An "Essential Business"

Jerry Demings, the mayor of Orange County, FL (where the city of Orlando, the home of WWE's Performance Center, is located), declared during a Monday afternoon press conference that WWE qualifies as an "essential business".

A reporter mentioned the positive COVID-19 test within WWE, and asked if WWE was either deemed essential, or had obtained some type of exemption in order to continue staging their productions there.

Demings responded, "Originally, they were not deemed an essential business. With some conversation with the governor's office regarding the governor's order, they were deemed an essential business."

Demings admitted that he didn't know any of the specifics about the on-screen talent who tested positive for the virus. He added that he believes that WWE is doing its due diligence in an attempt to keep the productions safe, saying, "...from a business perspective, the WWE is doing that type of analysis of its own family."

WWE made the decision on Friday to resume their live broadcasts of weekly programming, after initially planning to tape over a month's worth of television this weekend. It's believed that the major impetus for the resumption of live broadcasts is due to the TV contracts with NBC Universal and FOX, as they mandate a number of broadcasts annually that need to be aired live.