Can you afford a second mortgage?
Given the uncertainty around the economy, most people can’t afford the first one, but they might need an additional loan against their house if they want to attend Wrestlemania in Las Vegas next April. PWinsider’s Mike Johnson reported the listed prices for the event before tickets go on sale in a few weeks, and at first glance, you might legitimately think that the numbers listed for admission to the two-night event is a parody based on the recent criticism of TKO prices.
However, it was confirmed that a front row set for the sports entertainment spectacle will be priced at $8,998 combined, while a 400 level set will cost $854 for two nights, with the other levels in between that price range. So, just to get in the building, it will cost a fan at least $425 for each night. Of course, that doesn’t take into account any travel costs associated with the trip to the show. There are plane tickets, hotel reservations, food, and other transportation costs that will have to be added into the total of the admission for someone to attend the event.
I understand that within the past several years that the demographic that attends Wrestlemania is generally the most diehard WWE fans, which is why an entire week is built around the showcase of the immortals, but the metrics for this seem to be completely beyond the scope of the scale for professional wrestling. By nature, Wrestlemania is designed to draw tens of thousands of fans, which is why the event has run exclusively in a stadium for almost the past two decades, but the scale of the prices suggest that it’s an event with a comparatively limited capacity of Madison Square Garden for a major boxing bout.
The TKO corporation simply can’t have it both ways.
Make no mistake about it, with the announcement of the purchase of Wrestlemania by the Saudi government in 2027 and hence virtually no travel crowd for fans in North America, there’s no doubt that prices are being juiced for the show in 2026. The reason being is simple, fans will either pay up to attended WM 42 or they can wait until at least 2028 to attend the pay-per-view in the United States. I get that the company is trying to replicate the pyro and ballyhoo of WM with the addition of two-night presentations for the other “big four” PPVs in 2027, but the bottom line is that the WM brand will always stand alone as the biggest event on the calendar because of its historical cache. Fans potentially traveling to Summer Slam in 2027 just wouldn’t be the same as being in attendance for Wrestlemania so there’s no question that there’s an increased demand for 2026 since the show will be in Saudi Arabia the following year.
That being said, as much as WM is promoted as the Super Bowl of pro wrestling, it’s not realistic for the TKO corporation to try to price it at anywhere near that level with staggering ticket prices in stadiums. Aside from the fact that football is more mainstream than pro wrestling and that has been the case since the end of the Monday night wars, an era when Monday Night Football actually started an hour earlier to avoid the competition of Raw vs. Nitro at the time, ticket prices are kept at a specific level because of the model that sells the maximize amount of tickets at a relatively moderate price to be able to maximize the fan base in an attempt to secure steady business.
For example, how many times has the WWE boasted about the sheer amount of tickets sold for events? Exactly how many people were in the building for Wrestlemania in 1987? Furthermore, as far back as the territory days, the ability to bring fans back to the box office was key for a successful organization. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that maximizing profits is the only goal that matters for a publicly-traded corporation, but will there be a tipping point that this strategy has an overall detrimental effect to the fan base, or at the very least the amount of people that are willing to pay for the product?
Again, there’s definitely a diehard demographic that will buy the expensive tickets, but when you get into the price range of $1500 for a pair of mid-level seats, there’s only a certain portion of even that diehard fan base that can afford them. The same applies for every other price level, and it won’t be too surprising if a certain portion of fans get priced out of attendance. Sure, there are a group of fans that will send their yearly vacation as a trip to WM, but how many of those fans have at least $4,000 they can spend on it? More importantly, how many of those fans that are willing to spend that type of cash on pro wrestling once would every be able to do it again?
The bottom line is, someone might be willing to spend that type of cash once to be able to experience the show with the notion that there aren’t going to spend that amount of money again. Getting fans to attend once is the opposite of the concept that built not only territories, but the success of national organizations as well.
All things considered, this might be TKO’s business plan, to base everything they promote around the WWE designed to draw the relatively short-end money in an effort to maximize the overall value of the company before they offload it to the Saudi government.
I’m usually not a conspiracy theorist (although, was there anyone of the grassy knoll?), but there seems to be too many red flags for there not to be a bigger plan in the grand scheme of things. The CEO of TKO, Mark Shapiro recently made headlines when he said that Vince McMahon priced for families at a business conference when he explained the reasoning behind the drastic increase of WWE ticket prices. Say what you want about Vince, he’s probably a deviant and deserves to be exiled, but he understood the business side of sports entertainment. He priced for families because there’s a measurable portion of the fan base that is generational. There’s probably a majority of the audience today that became fans when they were younger before they became lifelong fans of pro wresting. Ticket prices, pay-per-views, and merchandise that fans can realistically afford is how you can draw steady and consistent business over the course of a few decades. That consistency provides a level of security, which translates to the stock price in the modern era as well.
That just doesn’t appear to be the plan for TKO.
If Shapiro plans to adjust ticket prices and raise the cost to watch pay-per-views, along with the increase in the pries of merchandise to become the “new normal” so to speak of the amount of cash it takes to follow the WWE product, it’s difficult to see how that doesn’t eliminate a potential portion of the audience, both now and in the future. The reason I say that is throughout the extensive history of sports entertainment, even within the past two decades when WWE was in the undisputed top spot in the industry, there hasn’t been any type of track record to suggest that the audience can be maintained at the price range.
On the flip side, if the eventual goal for TKO is to increase the value of the company over the course of the next decade before they ultimately sell the company to the Saudi government for the highest price possible then the ability to create the next generation of fans wouldn’t be their priority. So far since the merger with the UFC, the TKO corporation haven’t shown any indication that they are looking toward the future of the wrestling business, but rather the ability to maximize the amount of money now. Taking that into consideration, would it be that surprising if the long-term plan was to sell the company? It would definitely explain some of the motivation behind the current business decisions. As much as Vince McMahon had to be exiled, it’s somewhat concerning that wrestling minds like Triple H and others aren’t truly in control of the future of the company. Keep in mind, TKO’s only goal is to maximize profits, not maintain the wrestling business.
What do you think? Share your thoughts, opinions, feedback, and anything else that was raised on Twitter @PWMania and Facebook.com/PWMania.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
Email [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, & Threads @jimlamotta89
