For years, cities have bid for the rights to host WWE WrestleMania just like the NFL does with the Super Bowl every year. When these types of events are held, it brings a major boost to the local economy.
WWE will present its first major premium live event in the United Kingdom in over three decades next month with Clash at the Castle in Cardiff, Wales. When the show was first announced, some fans were surprised to see the company take it to Cardiff instead of a bigger city such as London.
During today’s Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer was recapping the WWE second quarter 2022 earnings call. He noted that on that call, it was mentioned that Clash at the Castle is taking place in Cardiff due to the city paying the company for the event. Meltzer stated that WWE is changing its strategy for major events in the future and will try to have cities bid on other big events such as SummerSlam and the Royal Rumble.
“They also mentioned that with Cardiff, not only are they getting ticket revenue, but the city of Cardiff is paying for them to come in, which probably is why they went to Cardiff and not London for this big show. They are working on, for the biggest shows of the year, to do what they do for WrestleMania, which is essentially to put them up for bidding from cities.
So say you want SummerSlam, say you want Royal Rumble, instead of WWE going to Houston, Texas because they feel it’s a market where they can sell 30,000-40,000 tickets at the stadium, they will still be going to a stadium. But they want the city to pay them to bring them in because they’re bringing tourism and things like that to the city. The idea is for the big shows, going forward, this is their attempt, and this is what they’re gonna try to do….where the local government pays them to come in.”
