Brutal Truth Behind WWE's Ticket Price Surge Revealed (WWE News)
New data highlights just how brutal WWE's ticket hikes have been.
With WWE having become an increasingly expensive ticket in recent years, there's now some new data to highlight just how significant those pricing increases have been.
Per Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics, the average price for a domestic WWE TV event has roughly doubled since the TKO merger was finalised in September 2023.
Wrestlenomics has analysed new data obtained from Pollstar, which shows a sharp upturn in ticket prices in early 2024, continuing through into 2025, following more steady, gradual increases across the 2010s and early 2020s. This data doesn't capture every Raw and SmackDown, but the 27 domestic events captured in 2025 so far and 50 per year pre-pandemic represent substantial numbers.
Taking a look at those Pollstar findings, an average domestic TV event ticket price in 2022, adjusted for inflation to 2025, was $58. The 2023 equivalent was $60, 2024 jumps to a $73 average, and 2025 sits with a whopping $118 average price - again, all numbers adjusted for inflation to 2025.
So, the year of the TKO merger that brought WWE and UFC together, a WWE domestic TV event ticket cost an average of $60. Just two years later, in 2025, that average has hit $118, which is essentially double that 2023 figure.
To explore whether such price hikes had been seen across the wider live entertainment business, Wrestlenomics looked at Pollstar numbers for touring acts across North America during that same time period. Whereas the WWE numbers have doubled over the past two years, the loose comparison for touring entertainment acts was relatively stable when adjusted for inflation; $123 an average ticket in 2022, $144 an average ticket in 2023, and $140 an average ticket in 2024.
If looking to compare WWE to live sports, The Athletic notes how NBA ticket prices are actually slightly lower this season than last, whilst the NBA average ticket price for the 2024-2025 season went up to $144 from a $118 average the prior season. Still, that NBA increase is nothing when put up against the WWE increases for that same period.
Again, those WWE numbers are purely for domestic TV events, so it's not a case of any higher-priced international Raw and SmackDown tapings driving the stark increases.
Ultimately, this latest data shouldn't come as a shock, particularly with TKO COO Mark Shapiro recently indicating WWE ticket prices will continue to rise as the company pushes forward with "maxing the opportunity", but it's still somewhat jarring to see the cold, hard, year-by-year numbers and realising just quite how much WWE tickets have increased since the TKO merger.
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