Vince McMahon was part of today’s WWE 2020 First Quarter conference call and commented on the process of the company resuming live events with crowds. Here are the highlights:
Vince said yes [in regards to having a crowd at Full Sail University when restrictions are eased], that is possible but it all depends on and that if that situation ever presented itself, it’s likely WWE will be the first organization to have events in front of an audience, albeit he doesn’t know what “live audience” even means now.
Vince said he isn’t sure if WWE will be in the live event business as they were before; they are ready, if it’s allowed. He feels it will take a while for consumers to come out and cram into a 70,000 stadium but if anyone can figure it out, it’s them. Vince feels it will be more content oriented, perhaps not live events but more digital and social media. It’s a creative environment and they look at it is an opportunity.
Vince said the costs are substantially lower, they are saving a lot of money but they need an audience, they need that interaction that the company draws from. Vince said they don’t want to just continue to produce in a studio environment because there are a lot of things in a live audience that have advantages. He talked about how wrestlers play off of a live audience and merchandising as two strengths of holding their shows at venues across the country.
The next question is asked about if WWE has a perspective on how affected WWE’s audience is to the economic downturn. They said they don’t have granular details on that. Vince said their fans are very robust and if they held an event at MSG, it would be sold out immediately. Vince says that with the “new normal”, they can change their prices and even venues that charge rent will likely be coming down. As producers, ticket prices will probably go down and they will have to adapt.
