TKO's Mark Shapiro discusses WWEs 2025 plans, more

[Chris]

WWE to hold fewer live events in 2025, potentially increase ticket prices

On the eve of their first anniversary after merging both WWE and UFC into the publicly-traded TKO, the brand’s president revealed some news on the live event front for WWE fans. The full audio for the…

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On the eve of their first anniversary after merging both WWE and UFC into the publicly-traded TKO, the brand’s president revealed some news on the live event front for WWE fans.

The full audio for the call can be found below.

Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference Wednesday, Shapiro said they are continuing to trim “marginally profitable” non-televised live events that Vince McMahon liked to run when he was trying to expand the brand name in smaller cities and regions.

Going from what Shapiro called 300 events in the McMahon era, he said they will put on 250 shows this year and then drop down to 200 in 2025 in the effort of “margin expansion” which is financial speak for an increase in a company’s profit rate.

As he has done in the past, Shapiro said that they remain underpriced on WWE tickets and joked that he yells at the WWE team about not making prices higher when they are selling out so fast. He mentioned they didn’t have dynamic pricing tools in the past, indicating the trend of ticket prices increasing as demand increases that has taken over the concert industry could be coming to WWE.

He said with the current Peacock deal for their PLEs/archive content coming up in 2026, they feel “incredible” about that deal coming up and that it’s “beautiful” they have all the deals in place for Raw, SmackDown and NXT, putting over Netflix strongly as a “battleship” that will help them grow their brand and audience.

On the PLE deal, Shapiro said the 12 monthly events are “exciting and that people know” all about the shows. He said the WWE fanbase is a casual sports fan, an entertainment fan, lots of women, and very, very young. He said they are in a “really strong place” and plan on doing a lot of listening with all the potential suitors for the PLEs.

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Shapiro also talked about the impending UFC TV & PPV rights negotiations that are coming up in 2025. He revealed that the exclusive negotiating window with ESPN/Disney is between January 15 through April 15 and that their preference is to re-sign with the incumbent

He said there have been no negotiations with ESPN as of now and that other platforms remain interested in having conversations about UFC programming. He reiterated they are going to remain flexible with the negotiations and with any partners who align with what they are trying to do like grow revenue in addition to both the audience and brand.

That extends to what they do with pay-per-views and revealed that Dana White initially didn’t like releasing control of sales to ESPN as he loves being a promoter. Shapiro said when it comes to either splitting the package or taking PPV sales back in house, they are up for all of it.

Click here to listen (no sub needed)

 

[Chris]

This audio quality sucks ngl

 

[Chris]

"Paul Levesque approves line by line every story beat his team gives him....WWE is scripted in case you guys didn't realize that"

Lol died at this part

 

[Dale]

Don't house shows generally lose money anyway? So cutting a chunk back on them can only be a positive for everyone involved (for the most part)

 

[Chris]

It's only a negative to talent improving that want to work them. Otherwise most people would probably like not having to work every single weekend along with TV during the week. I think old heads hang onto them for tradition more than anything, but it really only has negatives to small town fans that don't get TV shows and very green talent that need reps

 

[Chris]

Also Mace and Mansoor said recently when they were getting close to reaching a bonus for merch sales bc they were pushing well at live events...they got pulled from live events so I really doubt many talent if any will take issue with this, even the ones that do enjoy performing at house shows

 

[Chris]

Getting to the house show part now, he does say they are "marginally profitable" which I have heard they weren't losing money anymore, it's just to raise profits even more essentially

 

[Comrade Khan]

Also Mace and Mansoor said recently when they were getting close to reaching a bonus for merch sales bc they were pushing well at live events...they got pulled from live events so I really doubt many talent if any will take issue with this, even the ones that do enjoy performing at house shows

 

[Comrade Khan]

prob good for talent. really shitty for families who cant afford the insane prices of ppv and raw though

 

[Chris]

 

[Comrade Khan]

 

[Cwalker]

The one big thing I take away from this is talent not getting the chance to improve by not having so many house shows.

But that’s not a huge issue considering they have a performance center that the talent that needs seasoning can go to.

Also, losing out on merch money sucks

 

[Chris]

I hate bonus structures anyway, I wasn't aware WWE had them still for regular talent (knew they did for legends). Either pay flat and the company takes all merch or give them a portion of every sale, maybe they do get that portion and just an EXTRA bonus if you sell so much but that still just invites the company to fuck with stuff so you sell less if deadline is coming or talent cheesing it trying to sell to meet that amount. I've dealt with so many different kinds of bonus and commission structures in my job and the negatives almost always outweigh the pros for company and employee IMO people just get sold on them bc "get paid what you earn" sounds good to everyone

 

[Dale]

If it's that big of a deal then get them on the NXT loop, assuming he's not talking about these being scaled back too.

 

[Chris]