6 Reasons Why WWE Badly Needs An Off-Season

By Brad Hamilton /

2. Massive Drop In Ticket & Merchandise Sales

The previous business model for pro wrestling before Vince killed the territories was to use you television program to build your live events €“ house shows €“ and make your money off tickets. The WWE revolutionized that model by not only reversing the importance of TV and house shows, but also by being the first company to truly grasp the importance of marketing merchandise to their audience. If they were to reduce the amount of shows per year, they€™d take a serious hit in the amount of live event tickets they sell. Merchandise could be a little trickier to predict, as it€™s not unreasonable to assume with good brand awareness that people may continue to purchase shirts and other items during the downtime, as once again pro sports teams don€™t seem to take a huge hit in these areas when employing the same model. The counterpoint to the reduced amount of ticket sales is that if WWE were to play their cards right, they could potentially increase the size of the arenas they run in and make up the lost revenue, since seeing a WWE show live will not as easy as it once was with two or three shows per year in each market. But once again, there€™s no way that Vince and company are willing to take those short-term losses in hopes of establishing long-term gains.