Mark Shapiro Says He Doesn’t Regret Moving WrestleMania 42 To Las Vegas

Mark Shapiro comments on WrestleMania 42 ticket prices/sales.

There was a ton of conversation surrounding the decrease in ticket sales for this year’s Mania event, which was held in Las Vegas for the second straight year. Fans were also upset at the show’s ticket prices, which could have led to a decrease in attendance.

Speaking with Yahoo Finance in an interview that was recorded before WrestleMania 42, TKO President Mark Shapiro admitted that he might’ve made a mistake with his decision to move the show from New Orleans to Las Vegas. Even then, Shapiro says that he doesn’t have any regrets about his call.

“WWE, UFC, PBR — in today’s economic climate and obviously a lot going on from a geopolitical perspective and a lot going on at home from an affordability perspective, we’re still seeing massive uptick —maybe even more so — of families and fans that want to come out and escape the day-to-day. They’re doing it through the lens of our sports and entertainment properties. We’re seeing strong growth on our ticket yields, we’re seeing sellouts across the board on our UFC numbered events and our Raw, SmackDown, NXT, and Premium Live Events at WWE. PBR is having its best year in the last 5 years. That should tell you something in terms of demand, anticipation, and following and should bode well for years of long-term sustained growth. I would tell you that Vegas is 2 years in a row for WrestleMania 42, so some of the challenges we had there is usually we move WrestleMania year after year to a new spot and that allows us to obviously grow and see the kind of economic impact we would expect. Maybe it’s a mistake I made because Vegas was so huge last year and such a winner for our fans and the product that I said to Nick Khan, ‘We’ve gotta go back to Vegas next year. We have to move New Orleans down the road and we got to come back to Vegas.’ Las Vegas, I don’t need to tell you, is the Mecca for great events. More and more events are moving there, music has residences, and more and more sports teams — as evidenced by the NHL and soon-to-be Major League Baseball — are popping up there with teams to come. Absolutely no regrets on going back there, but the only reason you’re hearing some of the, hey it’s not what it was last year, it’s because we’re not benefiting from the first mover experience.”

WrestleMania 43 is scheduled to take place in Saudi Arabia.

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