Mark Shapiro & Nick Khan Talk WWE Ticket Price Increases, UFC’s Paramount Deal

Nick Khan and Mark Shapiro spoke on Wednesday about the effect of WWE’s ticket price increases and the UFC’s Paramount deal, respectively. As reported, WWE has boosted prices on tickets since merging into TKO. That has resulted in a boost to WWE’s revenue, as noted in the TKO Q3 earnings report.

In addition, the UFC announced a new media rights deal with Paramount starting next year. Shapiro and Khan were asked about these matters on the TKO earnings call. You can see highlights below:

Shapiro On Why Paramount Is The Right Partner For the UFC:

“At the end of the day, as it turns out with the domestic deal, Paramount and — CBS for that matter. But that whole company, PSKY, ended up having the best equation. Which is best for our brand, best marketing brand, a holistic effort given what they’re doing on the domestic side with that investment. And of course, the best rights fee.

“So for us it’s always going to be brand, reach, dollars. And for those three territories specifically, we knew it was going to be a bidding war, because we have strong fanbases. And we capitalized on it.”

Khan On WWE’s Live Event Revenue Rising:

“It’s both [PLEs and weekly event, pricing and capacity]. Capacity continues to be very high. We’ve increased prices appropriately with the marketplace. That’s for the PLEs, Raw, Smackdown, Saturday Night’s Main Event, and every other ticketed program that WWE has. We remain bullish on it. A couple of years ago when TKO was put up, one of the first things we collectively did was reduce the non-televised live events, which created more scarcity in the marketplace for our televised events. And our continued international expansion only furthered that.

“So even in January, you’ll see us on a European tour for Raw and Smackdown leading into Royal Rumble, which takes place in Saudi Arabia. Tickets already on fire for that event. And it creates more scarcity in the United States, which is a good thing in terms of our overall gauge.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit TKO with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.