how much longer would WCW have lasted

Vince couldn’t convince Spike, USA, or UPN to let him run a WCW-branded show, and there weren’t really any other stations clamoring for a wrestling-show either. Unless Eric could get a TV spot the brand was dead.

Didnt Eric recently say on his Pod that discussions between him/Fusient stalled when he found out there was no TV deal but he started working on a TV deal (WB? or someone I cant remember) and before it could get finalized AOL/TW accepted WWEs offer and it ended all negotiations?

Regardless I think WCW would still be around. It may not be what it once was but maybe it could be better. Bringing the NWA back into the fold could have given them a flourishing amount of talent. Essentially what you saw from TNA & ROH in the early 2000s would have been WCW.

Looking back its a shame how WCW ended considering they were starting to turn it around a bit in those final months.Wouldve been interesting to see how they adapted if they  didnt go belly up

And after all these years...I still wanna know who drove the hummer damnit!

WCW in the 00's would've been TNA without a 6 sided ring and X Division belt.

Most of the TNA wrestlers would most likely have joined WCW along with possible returns like Syxx and Hogan.

I could also have seen them try to poach Lesnar in 2004.

It's really difficult to picture. So many moving parts. One of the reasons Bischoffs pod is vital listening for me are his explanations of the TV business.

Something he has a unique perspective on compared to say JR or Prichard.

I'll reframe eye question for you since your counterfactual supposes an unknowable without acceptable parameters. NWA still functionally exists... The question is: Would WCW have been viable had Bischoff managed a buyout? The simple answer is NO

Here's the problem with WCW at its core from a political dimension but this is involved

First, WCW was a promotion working from a Southern model in an inconvenient alliance with Japan. Then you have two ethnic factions that wielded power over time: Florida (Dusty Rhodes, Kevin Sullivan, Mike Graham) and Minnesota in a merger with New York defectors (Bischoff, DDP).The Southern talent (Flair, Luger, Sting) were kept around because they were paid a lot to stay and likely to appease Ted Turner, who otherwise had no care for the promotion past a vanity project. Minnesota was the link between Ted Turner and the money, while Florida was the booking machine, both hostile to the Southern wing seen as outsiders. It's rich when Bischoff says he didn't even want Luger back, from a guy who seemed to employ Minnesota talent like John Nord for no reason other than to give him a job. You see that a lot. Same with Rick Rude and damaged goods like Curt Hennig

These three factions then had a marriage with the Kingdom of Hulk Hogan on the order of the Austro-Hungary Empire. That's important since the survival of the Kingdom depended in weird ways on Hulk Hogan and the friends he'd have be employed, taking up midcard spots. Hogan's pals were never from one area. He used people with size to take up spots; in the event of discontent, he could de facto ruin a promotion 

My view of Bischoff is he was a mediocre striver with eyes for Hollywood and that he saw Hogan as his way in getting there, starting with Thunder in Paradise. I think Turner executives saw him as a sleazy con artist who could be used to sink the company from the start. Bischoff got rid of Hogan's enemies and outsiders (namely Memphis and Mid South legacy factions), then gave Hogan the kingdom. 

Had Bischoff acquired WCW, nothing would have changed. It would have been Hogan and his pals on top, Bischoff embezzling money for Hogan and his friends all over again, and with Japan in decline, outsider talent would have been all the more shallow. Bischoff had no ideas. He didn't revolutionize wrestling. He hotshotted the promotion into oblivion, never seemed to have an idea for what were his marquee events, used Sugar Daddy Ted Turner's money to hire celebrities without any end to get his own acts over. Some might think "82 weeks" on top is a feat. Do the math. That's a year and a half - very brief for a boom period. That's now stupid Bischoff is. A normal boom in wrestling lasts for about 4 years. He hotshotted a company against a rival whose television was used as an infomercial to sell house shows and PPVs, like a normal company does. What's worse is I don't even think WWF responded to Bischoff, which goes against the narratives people hear. WWF only started to hotshot somewhat in 1997, and that's only because Shawn Michaels left, creating a real vacuum within the company. That Michaels left with his "lost smile" was, for better or for worse, unprecedented in that company. Otherwise, you still got mainly throwaway matches on Raw, not Nitro-esque hotshotting.

Whether one likes Vince Russo or not - I don't - it should stand out that Russo was the only one to ever push outsiders in that company (Booker T. and Jeff Jarrett). That's something the Florida and Minnesota factions never would have done. Russo also pushed Chris Benoit. Some might say that Kevin Sullivan pushed Benoit in January 2000. I think Benoit left precisely because they were going to sabotage him.  Benoit wasn't stupid. They only gave him the belt because they had no one else to give it to.  

Bischoff never had pure intentions. It's almost pathetic to see him on his podcast knowing how bitter he is that he made it in Hollywood. He's wealthy. He lives on a ranch in Wyoming, yet he can't ride in the Sun about that. His reality show start ups failed about a dozen times. 

To depict Bischoff even more for the myopic clown that he is, one of the few to ever get pushed was DDP. Now DDP was part of his Minnesota clique. But there's something more subtle here. Bischoff and DDP would swap wives. He's a literally cuckold. DDP was charismatic. I saw him as a star even in the early 90s on merit of his character work. Same with Diamond Studd and Vinnie Vegas. DDP, however, only got over because the promotion protected him in ways no one else was. DDP could only script a match and get his own spots over. That's fine because it's wrestling so who cares, but that's why he failed in WWF where such protections weren't afforded to anyone in that period.

In other words, WCW was a Confederacy in alliance with the Kingdom of Hulk Hogan by way of a marriage of convenience . WWF was a veritable Kingdom. WCW was a Southern skeleton in an ever-growing, then ever-waning union with Japan, seized by a Minneapolis guy with crossover into New York, manned by Florida, unified by Hulk Hogan, with the South tertiary to Florida and Minneapolis interests as an appeasement to its Southern legacy rooted in financial interests. WCW had no protectorate interests. WWF was a New York skeleton with an ever-growing, then ever-waning union with Québec, manned by a multigenerational Irish Catholic mobster family, merged with Toronto interests; Southern business turncoats; Memphis and Minneapolis talent; all unifying in the common interest of the New York union.

WWF is an actual kingdom not much different from why the United Kingdom exists. WCW was never a kingdom, certainly not a Southern one, but more operated as a schizophrenic confederacy that opens itself to embezzling scams of the sort Bischoff did on the regular, while WWF maintained a de facto protectorate through subsidies to the last remnants of what would remain under the NWA banner (Portland and Memphis notably), then ECW.