brandon@wrestlenomics.com 

WWE filed a complaint on Feb. 16 against the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, to prevent the release of an agreement between WWE and the City of San Antonio. 

Releasing the contract would allow Wrestlenomics to report on it and reveal information including what the city government gave WWE in exchange for bringing the Royal Rumble event to the Alamodome in 2023. WWE says the agreement is a trade secret and contains proprietary information that fits an exemption in Texas’s public information law.

Various records were requested by Wrestlenomics from the City of San Antonio following the Royal Rumble last year. That resulted in our reporting on the event’s ticket sales, the announced attendance figure, as well as ticket sales of the 2017 Rumble, which was also held in the city.

In April 2023, city officials were granted an exemption from the state Attorney General’s office, which allowed them to withhold the bidding contract.

However, the Attorney General revised the decision on Jan. 17, 2024. The letter, written by an Assistant Attorney General, Michelle Garza, stated, “WWE has failed to provide specific factual evidence demonstrating the information at issue is confidential under” Texas’s public information law.

Obtaining site fees or other subsidies from government bodies for major events is a publicly stated strategy for WWE. President Nick Khan said at a conference last year that the company’s goal is to eventually get a site fee for each premium live event. 

Last year, Wrestlenomics confirmed with the local government in Puerto Rico that WWE received more than $1.5 million in subsidies to run Backlash and Smackdown in San Juan last May. 

TKO COO Mark Shapiro said in December that the WWE and UFC parent is getting $16 million for “a combination of events” in Australia. Presumably, that includes last Saturday’s Elimination Chamber show in Perth.

Since 2018, WWE has received more than $50 million per event from Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority.

The revision of the Attorney General’s earlier ruling was seemingly brought on by further review following a second records request, submitted sometime before Oct. 12, 2023, when WWE says it received notice from San Antonio about another request.

The second requesting organization was Intelligence Options, LLC. WWE’s suit says that request is now moot because it was made in connection with a lawsuit that has since been settled. Intelligence Options sought records related to “[a]ll bids, requests for proposals, contracts and agreements” between WWE and San Antonio from 2015 to the present and all complaints related to WWE throughout the same period.

We reached out to Intelligence Options by email but haven’t heard back yet.

WWE settled a racial discrimination lawsuit with former writer Britney Abrahams, which was dismissed on Oct. 13, 2023. We contacted Abrahams’ attorney for the case, Derek Sells, who said he isn’t at liberty to discuss his client’s matter.

MLW CEO Court Bauer, whose organization settled an anti-trust lawsuit with WWE in December last year, told us in an email he doesn’t know who or what Intelligence Options is.

WWE and trading card licensee Panini also settled a lawsuit last fall. We emailed lawyers who represented Panini and a media relations contact for Panini but have yet to hear back.

We also reached out to WWE to ask which lawsuit the Intelligence Options request was associated with and will update this article if we get a response.

The website for Intelligence Options says the company provides litigation consulting, as well as investigative and deal diligence services.

A sworn declaration from WWE Senior Vice President of Communications Chris Legentil is provided as an exhibit to the new complaint filed by WWE. Legentil says the bidding contract shouldn’t be released to Wrestlenomics.

“If this information was made publicly available and Brandon Thurston was permitted to publicize our financial information and negotiated terms on Wrestlenomics,” Legentil’s declaration states, “WWE would lose our bargaining power in negotiating all of our live events and much of the value of a bidding process for venues.”

Records related to Royal Rumble 2023 were eligible for public records request because the Alamodome is owned and operated by the city government. A contract between the City of San Antonio and WWE is also a public record because one of the parties is a government entity.

However, WWE argues the bidding contract should be exempt from being disclosed under Texas’s public information laws, which, with certain conditions, defines a trade secret as “all forms and types of information, including business, scientific, technical, economic, or engineering information, and any formula, design, prototype, pattern, plan, compilation, program device, program, code, device, method, technique, process, procedure, financial data, or list of actual or potential customers or suppliers, whether tangible or intangible and whether or however stored, compiled, or memorialized physically, electronically, graphically, photographically”.

WWE’s lawsuit is filed with the 345th Civil District Court in Travis County. Austin, the Texas state capital, is in Travis County.

WWE is seeking from the county court a judgment and injunction to prevent the release of the bidding contract related to the above-mentioned information requests and any future similar requests.

WWE is being represented by attorneys from Texas-based law firm Holland & Knight LLP.

To be clear, neither Wrestlenomics (which is a limited liability company) nor myself personally, are being sued in this case. The lawsuit will merely determine whether Wrestlenomics and possibly Intelligence Options will be given information related to the bidding agreement between the city and WWE.

There was a somewhat similar case in 2011 in New Jersey, which resulted in the release of records related to various events including some WWE shows held from 2007 to 2011.

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Update May 12, 2024:

The Texas Attorney General’s office hasn’t responded to defend against WWE’s lawsuit. An attorney has yet to be assigned to the case to defend the office despite being served on March 1.

WWE moved for default judgment on Apr 9.

There’s now a hearing scheduled for May 29 at 9 am local time with WWE’s attorney from Holland & Knight LLP, Tricia R. DeLeon, and Judge Jan Soifer about default judgment.

I’ve made an additional request related to this information to the Office of the Governor of Texas, which I believe likely has records that would show the cost of the 2023 Rumble to San Antonio.

I made the request along with a similar request to the Governor’s Office for Wrestlemania in 2022 in Dallas/Arlington, to get details on what the government paid for — seems like possibly nearly $9M — in relation to Wrestlemania.

For the Wrestlemania 2022 request, the Governor’s Office recently requested the Attorney General approve an exemption so the Governor’s Office doesn’t have to release information responsive to this request, under an exemption called Deliberative Process Privilege because something in Exhibit B (not shared with me) involves inter- or intra-agency communication.

For the Rumble 2023 request, the Governor’s Office is seeking an exemption under Deliberative Process Privilege but also under a second exemption called Common Law Privacy.

The governor’s office says there’s “information that is intimate and embarrassing and not of legitimate concern to the public, including financial decisions that do not relate to transactions between an individual and a governmental body.”

This exemption also requires the hypothetical publishing of the information to be “highly objectionable to a reasonable person” and “not of legitimate public concern.”

I’m requesting the Disbursement Request for the Royal Rumble 2023 which I believe would be a lot of receipts and payment records detailing costs covered for WWE so that the local organizing committee could be reimbursed with taxpayer dollars. It’s hard to imagine how that information would meet this exemption.

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Update May 21, 2024:

The Texas Attorney General’s office responded on Tuesday, May 20.

This is the first step Ken Paxton’s office has taken to assert a defense in this case since WWE filed the lawsuit in February.

The defendant entered, “a general denial to all allegations in Plaintiff’s [WWE’s] Petition,” the new filing reads.

The answer was submitted on behalf of Ken Paxton’s office by Assistant Attorney General Dennis McKinney. The response also asked the judge to require WWE to pay for all court costs related to this lawsuit.

AEW Revolution, on March 3 at the Greensboro Coliseum, drew just over $1 million in ticket sales for Sting’s retirement match, according to records provided by the City of Greensboro to Wrestlenomics in response to a public records request.

The settlement between AEW and the venue, which details various revenues and expenses, shows the event generated $1,025,829.50 in ticket sales. That figure includes $64,865.10 in sales tax and $9,547.23 toward Ticketmaster’s 5% fee. After taxes and fees, the net revenue was $951,417.17.

This verifies comments made a few days after the event by the venue’s deputy director, Scott Johnson, that the event drew $1 million in gross ticket sales.

The settlement also shows the event sold 15,837 tickets, putting the average ticket sold price at $65. That calculation includes tickets sold at high “platinum” prices. Just 281 tickets were comped, for a total of 16,118 tickets distributed.

And, yes, a dreaded turnstile count was obtained as part of the response to our request. The number of tickets scanned for use (a.k.a “drop count”, a.ka. “scan count”, a.k.a. “turnstile count”) was 13,950, according to a spreadsheet Greensboro personnel provided to AEW via email. The percentage of tickets used (13,950) compared to tickets sold (15,837) was 88%.

For posterity, AEW’s announced number of tickets sold for All In 2023 in London was 81,035. A turnstile count of 72,265, 89% of the announced tickets sold, was later obtained from the local government. When we reported the All In turnstile count, we were told by multiple AEW sources that it was typical for the number of tickets scanned to be between 80% and 90% of the number of tickets sold.

That the number of tickets scanned for Revolution (13,950) was 88% of its number of tickets sold (15,837) could be interpreted as supportive of AEW’s All In claim. Percentages for both Revolution and All In are between 80% and 90%, and the percentages themselves, 89% (for All In) and 88% (for Revolution), are similar.

Breaking the $1 million live gate mark makes Sting’s retirement show among the highest gates in company history. All In by far holds the high mark, with a claimed gate of $10 million. Other AEW events that reached $1 million in ticket sales include Forbidden Door 2023 in Toronto, Double or Nothing 2022 in Las Vegas, Full Gear 2022 in Newark, All Out 2022 outside Chicago, and AEW Grand Slam 2022 in New York.

The settlement for Revolution includes a few other factoids. AEW owed the Greensboro Coliseum a total of $192,471.94 for various expenses: $55,000 for rental of the venue; $79,099.47 for IATSE-member stage hands; $42,028,25 for event staffing; and a $500 fee to clean up the confetti that was sprayed to celebrate Sting’s retirement, among other charges.

brandon@wrestlenomics.com

The Box Office Statement for AEW Revolution 2024, included in the settlement for the event, breaking down the ticket sales revenue.

The ticket scan count breakdown for AEW Revolution 2024, from an Excel spreadsheet sent from City of Greensboro personnel to AEW personnel.

The event settlement for AEW Revolution 2024, detailing expenses charged to AEW and net revenues from ticket sales. 

brandon@wrestlenomics.com

The all-time pro wrestling gate record for a one-day event is held by Wrestlemania 32 in 2016 in Arlington, Texas. WWE stated in a press release the gate was $17.3 million, which might include fees, which, if it did, I’d estimate the fees add on an additional 5% to 10%.

Last year’s Wrestlemania, over its two days combined, sold $21.6 million in ticket sales, according to WWE. That figure likely includes fees because data we have from Pollstar shows the two events sold a combined $19,749,071, which is 9% lower than WWE’s announced gate.

Ticket prices for this year’s Wrestlemania are substantially higher than the 2023 events. Sales volume is similar, based on WrestleTix estimates of tickets distributed, and assuming the comp rate is similar, this year’s Wrestlemania will blow away last year’s two-day gate of $21.6 million with fees or $19.7 million without.

It’s not even out of the question that either day by itself will challenge the all-time one-day gate record held by Wrestlemania 32.

According to Pollstar, last year’s Night 1 sold 67,553 tickets. Night 2 sold 67,303. Estimates of tickets distributed from WrestleTix for this year’s Wrestlemania are now similar to the final estimates of last year’s event.

WrestleTix estimated 67,303 and 67,553 for last year’s events in Inglewood. The latest estimates for this weekend’s events in Philadelphia are now 67,582 and 67,664, slightly higher than last year’s final numbers. It seems reasonable therefore to assume sales volume will be similar enough.

Across both nights, last year’s Wrestlemania had an average ticket sold price of $155 (based on 127,531 tickets sold for $19,749,071).

If Wrestlemania 32’s $17.3 million record includes fees and is about 9% lower without fees, then the all-time gate record without fees is about $15.7 million. Of course, the U.S. dollar has inflated since 2016, and we’ll address that below too.

But first, in terms of real-time dollars, what would the average ticket sold price need to be for this year’s Wrestlemania to break the all-time gate record? Taking for granted about the same number of tickets will be sold on each night as last year, 63,766 (half of 127,531), we can apply simple algebra.

$15,700,000 = 63,766x

x = $246

Is it possible this year’s average ticket costs $246, a 59% increase over last year? Maybe. It’s hard to say as first-market Wrestlemania tickets are probably dynamically priced by Ticketmaster, meaning the prices for the same seats might change over time. As I sit here (just got to hotel in Philadelphia) the cheapest ticket on Ticketmaster for Saturday is $164. The cheapest ticket for Sunday is $174. The average of those two prices is $169.

According to an article from Sporting News, the cheapest ticket last year was $67 for Night 1 and $84 for Night 2. The average of those two prices is $76. Pollstar actually puts the lowest ticket price at $25, much lower, but let’s go with the Sporting News prices to be conservative.

To apply the math crudely $169 (this year) compared to $76 (last year) is a 122% increase in the prices of the cheapest tickets, far beyond the 59% our algebra formula above required. Of course, this is a rough estimate and it’s even harder to estimate what prices were between the two years across the stadium at all pricing tiers and in what volume sales in each section occurred.

If, again to use that crude estimate, all tickets sold this year are about 122% more expensive than last year, the average ticket sold price for Wrestlemania 40 would be $344. If about the same number of tickets are sold, then the gate for each night of Wrestlemania this year will be about $21.9 million, roughly the gate for both events last year. That would shatter Wrestlemania 32’s record, even adjusting for inflation as $15.7 million in 2016 is worth about $20.0 million today.

And that’s without fees. Including fees, I suppose WWE would announce a number around 9% higher, or $24 million each night, and nearly $50 million combining both nights. Wrestlemania 32’s gate record of $17.3 million in 2016 would be worth about $22.4 million in today’s dollars.

Vince McMahon’s latest stock transaction was reported in a filing Thursday. He disposed of 3,484,000 TKO shares, related to his margin loan with Morgan Stanley, which was initiated in March 2020, shortly after the XFL folded. Vince got $85 million in cash at the time from the loan.

March 2024 was the scheduled month for the agreement to be settled, in which many shares would be transferred to Morgan Stanley in 15 installments throughout the month, from March 5 to March 25. How many shares Morgan Stanley got was contingent on complex math involving what the stock price would be this month.

I believe Vince would’ve ended up transferring about 2.25 million of the 3.484 million shares to Morgan Stanley, but instead the parties amended the agreement at the beginning of the month for Morgan Stanely to just get all 3.484 million shares in exchange for an additional payment to Vince of $100 million, which is close to market value for the incremental shares being transacted.

In other words, this wasn’t an entirely spontaneous stock sale, but Vince did decide to sell off more than the original agreement required.

To review, earlier this month, in a more straightforward transaction, on March 4, Vince did sell 5,350,000 shares, liquidating about $412 million. And in November he sold 8,400,000 shares for about $642 million.

After his stock transactions, Vince now has 11,518,099 shares, which is about 6.7% of all TKO shares. He has the same percentage of voting power.

Plus, due to TKO’s special one-time dividend that paid out upon the closing of the WWE-UFC merger in September, Vince received about $111 million.

The transactions above total more than $1.2 billion in cash that Vince has received since September.

brandon@wrestlenomics.com

Match of the week:
Powerhouse Hobbs vs. Sammy Guevara
Rating: 7.86
AEW Collision (Feb 24, 2024)

All match ratings from Cagematch.net as of Mar 1, 2024 08:27 AM U.S. Eastern Time Zone.

Matches included here meet any one of these conditions: a) rated matches with at least 10 votes from WWE, AEW, or New Japan; or b) have a rating greater than or equal to 8.50; or c) have a vote count in the top 10 percentile among matches with ratings for this week.

Feb 23 (Fri) – NJPW The New Beginning In Sapporo 2024

• Yuji Nagata vs. Zack Sabre Jr.: 5.84 (86 votes)
• Oleg Boltin, Ryusuke Taguchi & Togi Makabe vs. Ren Narita, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Yujiro Takahashi: 2.51 (58 votes)
• Callum Newman, Francesco Akira, Great-O-Khan & Jeff Cobb vs. Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, YOH & YOSHI-HASHI: 5.80 (65 votes)
• BUSHI, Hiromu Takahashi, Shingo Takagi, Tetsuya Naito & Yota Tsuji vs. DOUKI, SANADA, Taichi, TAKA Michinoku & Yuya Uemura: 4.82 (59 votes)
• Mayu Iwatani vs. Mina Shirakawa: 7.00 (134 votes)
• El Desperado vs. SHO: 3.15 (104 votes)
• EVIL vs. Shota Umino: 4.38 (99 votes)
• Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Matt Riddle: 5.68 (135 votes)
• David Finlay vs. Nic Nemeth: 6.76 (139 votes)

Feb 23 (Fri) – WWE Friday Night SmackDown

• Liv Morgan vs. Tiffany Stratton: 6.30 (55 votes)
• Dominik Mysterio & JD McDonagh vs. New Catch Republic: 7.16 (66 votes)
• Authors Of Pain vs. Street Profits: 6.15 (52 votes)
• Drew McIntyre vs. LA Knight: 6.27 (50 votes)

Feb 23 (Fri) – AEW Rampage

• Action Andretti, Top Flight vs. Bryan Keith, Komander & Penta El Zero Miedo vs. Isiah Kassidy, Marq Quen & Matt Sydal: 6.14 (71 votes)
• Anna Jay vs. Mariah May: 6.35 (77 votes)
• Jake Hager vs. Roderick Strong: 5.16 (66 votes)

Feb 24 (Sat) – AEW Collision

• Powerhouse Hobbs vs. Sammy Guevara: 7.86 (190 votes)
• FTR vs. Shane Taylor Promotions: 5.99 (130 votes)
• Bryan Keith vs. Malakai Black: 6.31 (143 votes)
• Lady Frost vs. Serena Deeb: 5.64 (117 votes)
• Bryan Danielson vs. Jun Akiyama: 7.44 (208 votes)

Feb 24 (Sat) – NJPW The New Beginning In Sapporo 2024

• El Desperado, Oleg Boltin, Shota Umino, Togi Makabe & YOH vs. EVIL, Ren Narita, SHO, Yoshinobu Kanemaru & Yujiro Takahashi: 4.88 (31 votes)
• Callum Newman, Francesco Akira, Great-O-Khan, Jeff Cobb & Matt Riddle vs. Hirooki Goto, Kazuchika Okada, Tomohiro Ishii, Toru Yano & YOSHI-HASHI: 6.45 (54 votes)
• El Phantasmo & Hikuleo vs. Guerrillas Of Destiny: 6.07 (69 votes)
• David Finlay & Gedo vs. Nic Nemeth & Ryusuke Taguchi: 4.06 (51 votes)
• BUSHI vs. TAKA Michinoku: 5.32 (70 votes)
• DOUKI vs. Hiromu Takahashi: 7.77 (112 votes)
• Shingo Takagi vs. Taichi: 7.82 (124 votes)
• Yota Tsuji vs. Yuya Uemura: 6.28 (108 votes)
• SANADA vs. Tetsuya Naito: 5.91 (108 votes)

Feb 24 (Sat) – WWE Elimination Chamber Perth

• Kabuki Warriors vs. Candice LeRae & Indi Hartwell: 5.48 (125 votes)
• Becky Lynch vs. Bianca Belair vs. Liv Morgan vs. Naomi vs. Raquel Rodriguez vs. Tiffany Stratton: 7.50 (405 votes)
• Damian Priest & Finn Balor vs. New Catch Republic: 7.52 (392 votes)
• Bobby Lashley vs. Drew McIntyre vs. Kevin Owens vs. LA Knight vs. Logan Paul vs. Randy Orton: 7.20 (405 votes)
• Nia Jax vs. Rhea Ripley: 6.50 (358 votes)

Feb 26 (Mon) – WWE Monday Night RAW

• Sami Zayn vs. Shinsuke Nakamura: 7.48 (92 votes)
• Giovanni Vinci & Ludwig Kaiser vs. New Day: 7.65 (95 votes)
• Liv Morgan vs. Nia Jax: 4.97 (62 votes)
• Cody Rhodes vs. Grayson Waller: 5.57 (69 votes)

Feb 27 (Tue) – WWE NXT

• Kelani Jordan vs. Kiana James: 5.64 (32 votes)
• Edris Enofe & Malik Blade vs. Karl Anderson & Luke Gallows: 5.72 (35 votes)
• Charlie Dempsey vs. Noam Dar: 7.42 (47 votes)

Feb 28 (Wed) – AEW Dynamite

• Bryan Danielson, Claudio Castagnoli & Jon Moxley vs. Cash Wheeler, Dax Harwood & Eddie Kingston: 7.65 (163 votes)
• Nick Wayne vs. Orange Cassidy: 5.95 (127 votes)
• Kris Statlander vs. Skye Blue: 5.97 (117 votes)
• Atlantis Jr. vs. Chris Jericho: 5.05 (122 votes)