Mark Shapiro Addresses WrestleMania 42 Ticket Sales And Creative Criticism

Mark Shapiro speaks on the ticket sales of WrestleMania 42 in Las Vegas and the creative criticism surrounding it.

Ticket sales became a television talking point, with Pat McAfee noting they were down, prompting discounts. There was considerable criticism online about the addition of McAfee to the Cody Rhodes vs. Randy Orton story.

Speaking on the TKO first quarter financials call, Shapiro addressed both items.

“We fielded some investor questions about WWE demand and the state of creative, driven by online commentary and the year-over-year WrestleMania ticket sale performance. We are not concerned about the ticket performance whatsoever. It was unrealistic to expect year two growth in Las Vegas. Even with that, WrestleMania 42 was still one of the highest gates in WWE history and easily outperformed anywhere else we could have staged it. As it relates to the creative, there will always be periodic fan dissatisfaction around creative execution, commercial load, and celebrity usage. We listen to all the feedback. We do it turn a deaf ear, but these are not new criticisms,” he said.

Elsewhere during the call, Shapiro spoke on TKO’s relationship with Saudi. You can find his full comments here.

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