Mark Shapiro on WWE’s Rising Ticket Prices & Vince McMahon “Wasn’t Totally Focused on Maximizing the Opportunity”

Wednesday’s Goldman Sachs Communacopia & Technology Conference 2025 event in San Francisco, California featured TKO COO Mark Shapiro as a guest. One of the topics discussed included Shapiro’s thoughts about WWEs rising ticket prices for shows and TKO wanting WWE’s ticket prices to be at the same level as UFC’s events. Shapiro also gave his thoughts about how Vince McMahon’s priority was focusing on families for ticket pricing over maximizing ticket revenue.

“WWE is not where the UFC yet is on ticket yield. We have our work to do there.

We know we have a lot of room there because Vince McMahon was primarily pricing tickets for families and wasn’t totally focused on maxing the opportunity there. Now that we’ve seen what we can do with UFC, we’re replicating that in terms of ticket yield and holding back and advance sales when it comes to OnLocation on the WWE side and it’s working out really well.”

Shapiro also gave his thoughts about WWE’s rising site fees for events and that “there are no shortage of countries…that want to see us bring our show to town.” Shapiro also stated that they will continue to maximize those opportunities with both in-kind deals, goods & services, but the “most important to me is cash. Cash kills.”

Shapiro also gave a warning to cities and towns who want to continue to host WWE and UFC events in the future for them to pay their asking fees or else they will just find another city or town more willing to do so.

“If we have a St. Louis going up against a Des Moines, Iowa, and you want us back there and you’ve broken records and sold out both your arenas, you have to pay for us to come back or else we’ll take it to another town. And that goes for NXT, Raw and SmackDown on the WWE side.”

Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com