Scott's Mailbag
Rants

The Slow Death of House Shows

By Scott Keith on 16 September 2024

Scott –

A couple days ago there was an item about WWE looking to cut down their house show schedule significantly (the release talked about going from 300 shows / year to 200, but I strongly suspect that includes main roster TV tapings in the total, so with those and PLEs out it's probably more like going from about 180 to 80).

They painted this as a Vince idea as a way of spinning it as “look at these low-profit things that the crazy old man had us doing.”

But… maybe I'm being overly attached to the past here, but aren't house shows, even in smaller markets, a good thing for WWE? To me it lets them keep a connection with fans that might never get a PLE or TV taping. Plus it gives the roster more ring time, which is increasingly important given all of the NIL signees that are going to start moving onto the shows (Tiffany and Bron are just the start of that trend) who haven't really worked outside the WWE system.*

Obviously, their biggest competitor doesn't worry about them, and I see the logic in saying if we can draw 12000 in Toronto or Chicago for a house show why bother with a show that only does 4000 in Grand Forks?” But I feel like this is a bit of corporate thinking that is ignoring the spinoff impacts.

* – Although they're getting better at that, thankfully.
They're never coming back to Saskatoon again, I can guarantee that. Given that house show schedule, we've seen the last one we're ever getting. And yeah, it was a great way to build community interest and a fun time, and cutting them is very much TKO being corporate bloodsuckers.