The president of the brand revealed some exciting news for WWE fans on the live events front, just before their first anniversary since merging WWE and UFC to form the publicly traded TKO.
Below you can find the full audio of the call.
Shapiro, speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference on Wednesday, said that they continue to trim “marginally profitable” non-televised events that Vince McMahon used to run when he tried to expand the brand in smaller cities and areas.
He said that they will perform 250 shows in 2019 and 200 in 2025, in an effort to “margin expand” which is financial jargon for increasing a company’s profits rate.
He did not specify if the 200 number included NXT as well.
Shapiro, as he has in the past said that WWE tickets are still underpriced and joked about yelling at the WWE team to raise prices when they sell out so quickly. He said they didn’t use dynamic pricing tools before, which could indicate that the trend of ticket price increases as demand increases in the concert industry is coming to WWE.
He said that with the current Peacock agreement for their PLEs/archived content coming up in the year 2026, that they feel “incredible”. They also think it’s “beautiful”, that they have all of the deals in place for Raw SmackDown, and NXT. Netflix is referred to as a “battleship”, which will help them grow their audience and brand.
Shapiro stated that the 12 monthly shows are “exciting” and that the public is aware of them. He said that the WWE fanbase consists of casual sports fans, entertainment fans, women, and young people. He said that they are in a very strong position and will be listening to all potential suitors of the PLEs.
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Shapiro also spoke about the upcoming UFC TV & PPV right negotiations that will take place in 2025. He revealed that ESPN/Disney’s exclusive negotiating window is between January 15 and April 15, and that they prefer to resign with the incumbent.
He said that there are no current negotiations with ESPN and that other platforms are still interested in talking about UFC programming. He said that they will remain flexible in the negotiations with any partners who align themselves with their goals, such as growing revenue and both the audience and the brand.
This extends to how they handle pay-per views. It was revealed that Dana White didn’t initially like giving up control of sales to ESPN because he loves to be a promoter. Shapiro said that they are open to splitting the package and bringing PPV sales in-house.
WWE will hold fewer live events by 2025 and possibly increase ticket prices in todays Wrestling news, Chatalong Chatbox, Results will be Hidden inside a spoiler Button so you will not bet spoiled about direct results.
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