WWE holding house shows every weekend on Saturday and Sunday nights could be a thing of the past, according to TKO COO Mark Shapiro. A lot of things have changed in WWE after the company was acquired by the Endeavor Group and merged with the UFC to form TKO.
WWE runs house shows, aka live events, to connect with fans in local markets, get wrestlers more experience, and work out future televised matches. The days of WWE making the majority of its money based off the gate are over, thanks to guaranteed TV rights deals, but they still play an important part in the business.
WrestleNomics’ Brandon Thurston noted that Shapiro spoke yesterday at the UBS media conference, where he noted the company is looking to cut back on house shows.
Shapiro called it “margin perspective” to run these types of shows, which is corporate speak for them not making a profit for the company. WWE just made more corporate layoffs last week.
“While there’s a reason to have them because it’s good for the brand, we’re building [an] audience, we’re putting them on in C and D counties, so we’re really stretching the brand, and we’re amassing a greater array of eyeballs from all demos so it’s good for our long-term growth. Through a margin perspective, they are dilutive. So there’s probably an opportunity as we go through our efficiencies and our synergy opportunities to cut back on some of those non-televised events, which will push our margin up so we are going through that exercise now.”
Shapiro says they want to cut back on WWE house shows. He says they're "dilutive" from a "margin perspective" which is wonderful corporate speak for unprofitable. Seemingly he's especially referring to house shows in smaller markets or "C and D counties".
In the course of this… pic.twitter.com/yQf8tI44CL
— Brandon Thurston (@BrandonThurston) December 5, 2023
