The rising cost of attending a live WWE event has been a hot topic among wrestling fans, and TNA World Tag Team Champion Matt Hardy has weighed in with his perspective. The veteran performer analyzed the new TKO-led strategy, comparing it to the more “family-oriented” approach of the Vince McMahon era and questioning the long-term sustainability of pricing that may alienate the core family audience.
The discussion was sparked by recent comments from TKO executive Mark Shapiro, who stated that WWE had not fully maximized its ticket revenue potential under McMahon and that the company is now replicating the UFC’s more aggressive pricing model. Speaking on his podcast, The Extreme Life of Matt Hardy, the wrestling veteran was asked for his take on the new pricing strategy. He acknowledged that as long as the company is selling out arenas, the strategy is currently sustainable, but he also highlighted the key differences he sees between the new regime and the old one.
“I feel like Vince wanted to make as much money as he could possibly make, but I don’t feel like he wasn’t as layered as these people. When they bring a WWE event anywhere, as you said, they wanted to do, seen his last event in Boston. Initially, that was the mindset. And obviously, the people who are there and are the biggest John Cena fans, and I’m sure John himself. He would love to go out on that. I don’t know. I would love to go out in Raleigh or Fayetteville or Charlotte or whatever. And I’m sure John would have loved to have done that as well. And it didn’t work out. But at the end of the day, it ends up being because Washington was paying them more money, apparently… I feel like Vince was a little more family-oriented when it came to those events. He wanted people to bring their kids out. And I don’t think he tried to take them for everything they could possibly pay. I think he tried to charge what he thought was fair, and he wanted to fill the house up. And he did want parents to bring their kids. And even when they changed the thing from the Attitude Era after they got out there and then kind of went back to a PG product that was to attract kids, because they know, whenever you have kids that demand, they want to come out and they love WWE and they want to see their favorite superstars, and that means the parents have to come with them too. So he obviously had a strategy there. I think these guys TKO is much more focused just on maximizing the profit and optimizing it to the highest level.”
Hardy also touched on the inherent risk of this new model. While WWE is currently enjoying a creative and commercial hot streak, he pointed out that a dip in the quality of the product could make fans unwilling to pay the new, higher ticket prices, which could be “problematic” for the company down the road.
“Well, they damn sure better make sure the creative is as good as possible, that they have a bunch of compelling, enthralling storylines and characters that people are going to pay top dollar to see. Because if they don’t, it would certainly be problematic…As of right now, there isn’t any worry. I don’t, I don’t, I feel like fans are, are so into what WWE is doing currently, they’re, they’re willing to pay top dollar to attend these events… It’s going to be really interesting to follow the dissension and the nascence of WWE as they, as I said before, I feel like there’s a part of them that has become such a mainstream, a mainstream act in many, many ways. It’s going to be interesting to see how high they can descend, and if this becomes a problem for them in the future, down the road, a couple of years from now, whatever, two, three years from now, how long can they keep up this momentum? It’s going to be, it’s going to be an interesting follow.”
Matt Hardy’s podcast drops every Friday at ExtremeHardy.com. If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit ExtremeHardy.com with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
