On the eve of his first anniversary after merging WWE and UFC in TKO, a brand that is quoted in the stock market, the brand president revealed some news about live events for WWE fans.
Speaking at the Communacopia & Technology conference of Goldman Sachs on Wednesday, Shapiro said they continue to cut the live events not televised “marginally profitable” that Vince McMahon liked to organize when he tried to expand the brand in smaller cities and regions.
Going from what Shapiro called 300 events in the McMahon era, he said they will carry out 250 shows this year and then go down to 200 in 2025 in an effort of “margin expansion”, which is the financial expression to refer to an increase in the profit rate of a company.
It did not specify if the number 200 also included NXT shows.
As he has already done in the past, Shapiro said that the ticket prices for WWE are still low and joked saying that he shouts at the WWE team for not increasing prices when they are running out so fast. He mentioned that in the past they did not have dynamic pricing tools, indicating that the tendency that ticket prices increase as the demand that has taken over the concert industry has increased could reach WWE.
He said that with the current PEACOCK agreement for its PLE/file content that will be specified in 2026, they feel “incredible” by that agreement that is coming and that it is “beautiful” that all the established agreements have for RAW, SmackDown and NXT, putting Netflix strongly as an “battleship” that will help them grow their brand and audience.
WWE will have more focus on Ple events
As for the agreement with the PLE, Shapiro said that the 12 monthly events are “exciting and that people know” everything about the shows. He said that the WWE fans base is composed of occasional sports fans, entertainment fans, many women and very young. He said they are in a “really strong place” and plan to listen a lot to all potential suitors for the PLE.
Shapiro also talked about the imminent TV and PPV rights negotiations of UFC that are coming in 2025. He revealed that the exclusive negotiation window with ESPN/Disney is between January 15 and April 15 and that its preference is to sign with the headline.
He said that so far there have been no negotiations with ESPN and that other platforms are still interested in having conversations about UFC programming. He reiterated that they will continue to be flexible with the negotiations and with any partner that is aligned with what they are trying to do, such as increasing income in addition to the audience and brand.
That extends to what they do with the PPVs and revealed that Dana White initially did not like to give control of sales to ESPN, since she loves to be a promoter. Shapiro said that when it comes to dividing the package or recovering PPV sales internally, they are willing to do everything.
