[Hotdiggity11]

A wrestling promoter lying? Stop it now thats crazy talk

The suggested confidentiality clause would have the city agree “not to publish or disclose attendance figures, turnstile counts, drop counts, ticket numbers, revenues, box office receipts,” and similar information, except when disclosure would be legally unavoidable. Even then, AEW’s language would’ve bound the city to notify the company in advance and assist in claiming that AEW’s attendance information is a trade secret under Texas law.

Another suggested clause would have sent legal disputes, if there were any, between AEW and the city into private binding arbitration instead of public court. Like with at least some of its talent contracts, AEW wanted its counterparty to waive its right to a jury trial and handle litigation only in private, with AEW’s chosen arbitration provider, JAMS.

Those clauses didn’t make into the final version because, Yelverton told us, agreeing to it wouldn’t have complied with state law. Texas statutes establish limits under which government entities can resolve disputes in arbitration.

Trying to violate state laws and hide data related to the transfer of public money is totally what all wrestling promoters do. 😂

 

[redban]

Unlesss I’m missing something - the “controversy” is that there’s a big discrepancy between the tickets sold/distributed vs actual butts in the seats? That’s the case for every single wrestling event. Not everyone with a ticket shows up. Even the article says outright: “It’s not unusual for the number of tickets scanned to be substantially lower than the number of tickets distributed or sold.”

an 8k difference is bigger than you’d expect, but it’s possible that most events have this sort of difference. Not all events have their attendance scrutinized and certified by a municipality. If they did, who knows how much smaller the attendance was for any Wrestlemania, Summerslam, or Royal Rumble in years past etc

I’m sour on AEW too, and I’ve been so since Ospreay ruined the product. But this is not the issue that you guys think

here, this article says that WWE reported 51,338 for Royal Rumble, but the municipality reported 44,569. So WWE had this happen too (WWE Royal Rumble 2023: San Antonio paid over $500,000 in site fees and incentives, contract discloses)

 

[Hotdiggity11]

Unlesss I’m missing something - the “controversy” is that there’s a big discrepancy between the tickets sold/distributed vs actual butts in the seats? That’s the case for every single wrestling event. Not everyone with a ticket shows up. Even the article says outright: “It’s not unusual for the number of tickets scanned to be substantially lower than the number of tickets distributed or sold.”

an 8k difference is bigger than you’d expect, but it’s possible that most events have this sort of difference. Not all events have their attendance scrutinized and certified by a municipality. If they did, who knows how much smaller the attendance was for any Wrestlemania, Summerslam, or Royal Rumble in years past etc

I’m sour on AEW too, and I’ve been so since Ospreay ruined the product. But this is not the issue that you guys think

here, this article says that WWE reported 51,338 for Royal Rumble, but the municipality reported 44,569. So WWE had this happen too (WWE Royal Rumble 2023: San Antonio paid over $500,000 in site fees and incentives, contract discloses)

The actual controversy is that AEW wanted to set up NDAs to hide this information. Which is against state law to do because AEW was receiving state money for hosting the event (The state ended up paying less than original because they were expecting around 34k for the event and got significantly less). Which would violate transparency laws.


And no, I’ve never heard of a wrestling company previously trying to do this. And if somehow WWE has, we’ve come a long ways from AEW pretending to be the more ethical company. I wonder what the fuck Tony Khan’s lawyers are doing trying to get kickbacks from the state but hiding vital information related to it.


Says a lot about this “greatest year ever” that TK wants to tout fake numbers while hiding the real numbers behind confidentiality agreements that wouldn’t have been legal anyways. 😂

 

[redban]

The actual controversy is that AEW wanted to set up NDAs to hide this information. Which is against state law to do because AEW was receiving state money for hosting the event (The state ended up paying less than original because they were expecting around 34k for the event and got significantly less). Which would violate transparency laws.


And no, I’ve never heard of a wrestling company previously trying to do this. And if somehow WWE has, we’ve come a long ways from AEW pretending to be the more ethical company. I wonder what the fuck Tony Khan’s lawyers are doing trying to get kickbacks from the state but hiding vital information related to it.


Says a lot about this “greatest year ever” that TK wants to tout fake numbers while hiding the real numbers behind confidentiality agreements that wouldn’t have been legal anyways. 😂

Oh - so the issue (supposedly) isn't that the event drew 8k fewer than thought. The issue is that AEW didn't want this info to come out. Yeah, right

Suppose that the news came out that the event drew 21k instead of 29k, with no mention of AEW's desire to keep the info concealed. You wouldn't try to dunk on AEW for drawing 21k instead of 29k? Call me skeptical

But even if you want to go on about "it's not that the attendance is lower than expected; it's that AEW wanted to hide it." The tweet in question says outright: 'This is not an unusual request we receive,' Yelverston wrote to us by email on Wednesday, 'but it is an easy response because it is not allowed under state law." So AEW's request is one that many organizations, promoters, companies etc. have sought. AEW didn't know that it's not allowed under state law, but many others didn't know either. It's not a big deal

 

[Hotdiggity11]

Oh - so the issue (supposedly) isn't that the event drew 8k fewer than thought. The issue is that AEW didn't want this info to come out. Yeah, right

Suppose that the news came out that the event drew 21k instead of 29k, with no mention of AEW's desire to keep the info concealed. You wouldn't try to dunk on AEW for drawing 21k instead of 29k? Call me skeptical

But even if you want to go on about "it's not that the attendance is lower than expected; it's that AEW wanted to hide it." The tweet in question says outright: 'This is not an unusual request we receive,' Yelverston wrote to us by email on Wednesday, 'but it is an easy response because it is not allowed under state law." So AEW's request is one that many organizations, promoters, companies etc. have sought. AEW didn't know that it's not allowed under state law, but many others didn't know either. It's not a big deal

So WWE (Who has been to Texas countless times) and other wrestling organizations have done the same? Source?

And yes, I would dunk on it but it has already been shown Tony Khan is a habitual liar so that’s not overly new. When have other WRESTLING companies gone through these lengths to keep this data hidden while asking for taxpayer money?

 

[validreasoning]

Unlesss I’m missing something - the “controversy” is that there’s a big discrepancy between the tickets sold/distributed vs actual butts in the seats? That’s the case for every single wrestling event. Not everyone with a ticket shows up. Even the article says outright: “It’s not unusual for the number of tickets scanned to be substantially lower than the number of tickets distributed or sold.”

From my researching wrestling attendance for over 30 years it would be highly unusual for thousands of people to buy tickets and then not show as it would in any area of life.

The most likely scenario in that situation is that tickets were distributed to people free (comped/paper etc) and those people decided not to go.

an 8k difference is bigger than you’d expect, but it’s possible that most events have this sort of difference. Not all events have their attendance scrutinized and certified by a municipality. If they did, who knows how much smaller the attendance was for any Wrestlemania, Summerslam, or Royal Rumble in years past etc

8k tickets sold for money and not showing up would be unprecedented unless there was global airline shutdown or biblical storm or some shit.

here, this article says that WWE reported 51,338 for Royal Rumble, but the municipality reported 44,569. So WWE had this happen too (

WWE Royal Rumble 2023: San Antonio paid over $500,000 in site fees and incentives, contract discloses)

That article says WWE sold ~45k and reported ~51k for "worked" attendance. That's not same thing at all. For 40 years WWE worked the attendances of big stadium shows in many situations ie WM3 had 78k in building and reported 93k, WM6 and 18 had nowhere near 68k they claimed. Even smaller buildings like Summerslam 93 they claimed 23k+ when actually attendance that night was 14k..

Look regardless 21k for a wrestling show is fucking great number. WCW only pulled 20k a handful of times between 88 and 2001. JCP didn't have 20k in attendance at any show in 30s/40s/50s/60s or 70s. It wasn't until Flair became established #1 guy did JCP see attendances over 20k for shows in mid 80s.

For all stuff Flair did the fact his name still resonates to this day is because he was all time drawing card in mid 80s, something that's the kids who started watching in 98/99/2000 seem to not really be aware of looking at their posts here especially.

 

[Hotdiggity11]

8k tickets sold for money and not showing up would be unprecedented unless there was global airline shutdown or biblical storm or some shit.

All In in 2023 had about a 9k gap.

The only scenarios I can imagine are:

1. AEW is giving A LOT of tickets away to people who aren’t planning on attending wrestling events. Thus “distributed.”

2. Tony Khan or some other rich associate of his are buying up tickets to artificially inflate the number.


Regardless, it’s pretty telling.

 

[validreasoning]

All In in 2023 had about a 9k gap.

The only scenarios I can imagine are:

1. AEW is giving A LOT of tickets away to people who aren’t planning on attending wrestling events. Thus “distributed.”

2. Tony Khan or some other rich associate of his are buying up tickets to artificially inflate the number.


Regardless, it’s pretty telling.

It's more likely #1.

Vince and WCW would do that back in day too. You see it in other sports where the distributed (announced) number is nowhere close to matching the number actually in building or stadium.

I think WM8 is good example. They sold 48k for that show and papered 12k but most of those 12k didn't show up. It's very obvious when they zoom into the bleachers especially the upper decks that night.

 

[redban]

From my researching wrestling attendance for over 30 years it would be highly unusual for thousands of people to buy tickets and then not show as it would in any area of life.

“Your research” vs what’s actually stated in the report. I go with the latter: it says outright, “It’s not unusual for the number of tickets scanned to be substantially lower than the number of tickets distributed or sold.” Your fabled “I have been researching wrestling attendance for 30 years” is not a source

AEW All In Texas attendance and public funding detailed in government records | Exclusive - Wrestlenomics

Overestimated attendance will result in lower funding but AEW will still get hundreds of thousands in reimbursements.

wrestlenomics.com

as for the WWE royal rumble 2023 - they sold 44.5k tickets and gave away 2,662 tickets. They reported 51k attendance (which includes staff and such). The municipality reported 42.9k tickets scanned . So with 47162 tickets moved and 42,900 tickets scanned, they had 4.6k tickets sold/distributed that were never scanned. Another example is Wrestlemania 32. WWE claimed over 100k (counting staff and such. Reported ticket sales / distributed was 84.k. Local police reported 80.7k tickets scanned

In AEW’s case - they claimed 29k (including staff and such). They distributed 27k tickets per Wrestletix. The certified attendance is about 21-22k. So it’s really a 5-6k difference between tickets distributed vs actual tickets scanned, which isn’t too unrealistic given the wwe examples above

 

[Sbatenney]

I mean scalpers are a thing so yeah it's believable that for a big show like All In that had over 40k the year before, that scalpers who don't understand the wrestling market(that UK markets and NA Markets are very different) could have brought a lot of tickets which could easily answer why Wrestletix got it so wrong with All In.

End of the day, AEW did a good job to make the stadium feel more filled out than they had as it looked over 25k at least from everything. Also if it was ticket scalpers that brought the tickets and just couldn't resell them, AEW still made money on those tickets so it's not really a loss either. Only loss is that they lost some funding from the state and could maybe impact states in the future giving so much but that isn't really something we can tell yet.

 

[redban]

All In in 2023 had about a 9k gap.

The only scenarios I can imagine are:

1. AEW is giving A LOT of tickets away to people who aren’t planning on attending wrestling events. Thus “distributed.”

2. Tony Khan or some other rich associate of his are buying up tickets to artificially inflate the number.


Regardless, it’s pretty telling.

#2 is just speculation. No indication of it

#1 is a practice that occurs for all wrestling events. Royal Rumble 2023 had 2,262 tickets that WWE basically gave away. Those tickets were parts of promotional deals (“buy 2, get one free”), or they were free tickets for talents to give their families and such . I’ve read some wrestler bios, and I remember that even people like Justin Roberts were given tickets for free so that family and friends could go

let’s suppose AEW gave 2,500 tickets away for free. Then 2.5k bought tickets and didn’t show (scalpers who couldn’t resell + people who no-showed for various reasons). That would basically explain the difference between Wrestletix’s 27k and the 21.9k certified attendance. It’s not especially unusual or embarrassing, nor is it “pretty telling” of anything

 

[Hotdiggity11]

I mean scalpers are a thing so yeah it's believable that for a big show like All In that had over 40k the year before, that scalpers who don't understand the wrestling market(that UK markets and NA Markets are very different) could have brought a lot of tickets which could easily answer why Wrestletix got it so wrong with All In.

End of the day, AEW did a good job to make the stadium feel more filled out than they had as it looked over 25k at least from everything. Also if it was ticket scalpers that brought the tickets and just couldn't resell them, AEW still made money on those tickets so it's not really a loss either. Only loss is that they lost some funding from the state and could maybe impact states in the future giving so much but that isn't really something we can tell yet.

Scalpers would be limited. They buy tickets usually at retail (Or cheaper in bulk) and sell them at a markup. Which is harder to do when an event isn’t even selling 60% of their tickets. Scalpers are less likely to bother if the event isn’t coming anywhere close to selling out.

#2 is just speculation. No indication of it

#1 is a practice that occurs for all wrestling events. Royal Rumble 2023 had 2,262 tickets that WWE basically gave away. Those tickets were parts of promotional deals (“buy 2, get one free”), or they were free tickets for talents to give their families and such . I’ve read some wrestler bios, and I remember that even people like Justin Roberts were given tickets for free so that family and friends could go

let’s suppose AEW gave 2,500 tickets away for free. Then 2.5k bought tickets and didn’t show (scalpers who couldn’t resell + people who no-showed for various reasons). That would basically explain the difference between Wrestletix’s 27k and the 21.9k certified attendance. It’s not especially unusual or embarrassing, nor is it “pretty telling” of anything

Sure it’s telling. AEW is as unethical in how it operates as WWE despite the years of the company and its fanbase pretending otherwise. Probably even more so in the past 2 years since at least WWE has been known to sell out buildings and them looking full/almost full. A rarity for AEW outside of those ballrooms and theaters.

 

[Sbatenney]

Scalpers would be limited. They buy tickets usually at retail (Or cheaper in bulk) and sell them at a markup. Which is harder to do when an event isn’t even selling 60% of their tickets. Scalpers are less likely to bother if the event isn’t coming anywhere close to selling out.

While true, you can you honestly say every scalper would understand the wrestling market? Some likely have no idea and assume that All In would sell out at the start given the much smaller stadium and may have brought at bulk at the start thinking the demand would still be over 40k for the show like in 2023.

Look you know I will criticize AEW when deserved, I do it all the time so much that most here believe I just hate them but really when an unbiased party like Wrestletix who has never shown any bias states a much higher ticket sells given they are going of ticket sell sites, my guess is that scalpers got caught out here, AEW still lied because Khan has stated that it was over 30k a number of times when it was at best 27k tickets sold with 23k of those actually in the stadium.

 

[Hotdiggity11]

While true, you can you honestly say every scalper would understand the wrestling market? Some likely have no idea and assume that All In would sell out at the start given the much smaller stadium and may have brought at bulk at the start thinking the demand would still be over 40k for the show like in 2023.

Look you know I will criticize AEW when deserved, I do it all the time so much that most here believe I just hate them but really when an unbiased party like Wrestletix who has never shown any bias states a much higher ticket sells given they are going of ticket sell sites, my guess is that scalpers got caught out here, AEW still lied because Khan has stated that it was over 30k a number of times when it was at best 27k tickets sold with 23k of those actually in the stadium.

I said from the start I’m just giving speculative options. No promotion gives an exact breakdown on tickets that were scalped. That would be hard to track anyways and the promotion doesn’t care since they already got the money for the initial ticket purchase.

Generally though, scalpers make their money from events that are sold out or close to sold out though. Which is common sense since they have to sell them at a markup. So not many tickets will be successfully resold if you can just buy them cheaper at a legitimate retailer.


I haven’t questioned anything about Wrestletix. All they do is tell us how many tickets were distributed and in what sections. Along with historic data and basic arena details. We can assume the WT number is the highest possible number of fans in the building. Outside of that, finding a more exact number is either visual guesstimation or finding data from the government/venue.

 

[A PG Attitude]

Oh my God who cares. Only wrestling fans would continue to argue about the attendance of a ppv from 3 months ago. Christ almighty

 

[validreasoning]

“Your research” vs what’s actually stated in the report. I go with the latter: it says outright, “It’s not unusual for the number of tickets scanned to be substantially lower than the number of tickets distributed or sold.” Your fabled “I have been researching wrestling attendance for 30 years” is not a source

AEW All In Texas attendance and public funding detailed in government records | Exclusive - Wrestlenomics

Overestimated attendance will result in lower funding but AEW will still get hundreds of thousands in reimbursements.

wrestlenomics.com

as for the WWE royal rumble 2023 - they sold 44.5k tickets and gave away 2,662 tickets. They reported 51k attendance (which includes staff and such). The municipality reported 42.9k tickets scanned . So with 47162 tickets moved and 42,900 tickets scanned, they had 4.6k tickets sold/distributed that were never scanned. Another example is Wrestlemania 32. WWE claimed over 100k (counting staff and such. Reported ticket sales / distributed was 84.k. Local police reported 80.7k tickets scanned

In AEW’s case - they claimed 29k (including staff and such). They distributed 27k tickets per Wrestletix. The certified attendance is about 21-22k. So it’s really a 5-6k difference between tickets distributed vs actual tickets scanned, which isn’t too unrealistic given the wwe examples above

You are arguing 8k people buying tickets and not turning up is normal when it's not. WM32 example (and I was in building that night) never to my knowledge had an official tickets sold/distributed source outside kpis which gave range of numbers based on simple calculation.

Even if 84k number is correct that's ~3% of distributed not turning up or more likely not being scanned because they were family members who went in through backstage.

8k out of 29k is closer to 30% of distributed not showing up which is gigantic difference to WM32 even if 84k number is correct.

Oh my God who cares. Only wrestling fans would continue to argue about the attendance of a ppv from 3 months ago. Christ almighty

People still argue WM3 attendance nearly 40 years later..

If this was another site we would have many threads arguing if Andre was really 7'4 but few here interested in heights it seems.

 

[redban]

You are arguing 8k people buying tickets and not turning up is normal when it's not. WM32 example (and I was in building that night) never to my knowledge had an official tickets sold/distributed source outside kpis which gave range of numbers based on simple calculation.

no, I am not, which was explained in the post quoted … Tony claimed attendance was 29k, which is a figure that included staff and such.. They distributed 27k tickets per Wrestletix. The certified attendance is about 21-22k. So it’s really a 5-6k difference between tickets distributed vs actual tickets scanned, which isn’t too unrealistic given the wwe examples . That 5-6k is a little high as a percentage compared to WWE events, but AEW is far less popular than WWE. So they would have a bigger percentage of no-shows than WWE does

as for Wrestlemania 32, this is the info. WWE claimed 101.6k. Wrestling Observer claimed 84k tickets were sold or distributed. The local police reported 80.7k tickets scanned

Exclusive: WrestleMania 32 Had Just Over 80,000 Fans In Attendance - Fightful | WWE News, AEW News, Pro Wrestling Backstage News

80,709 fans went through the turnstiles at WrestleMania 32 last year. This is in contrast to the 101,763 attendance announced live at the event and restated in WWE press releases. The event was held on on April 3, 2016, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. In February WWE CEO Vince McMahon...

www.fightful.com

Exclusive: WrestleMania 32 Had Just Over 80,000 Fans In Attendance - Fightful | WWE News, AEW News, Pro Wrestling Backstage News

80,709 fans went through the turnstiles at WrestleMania 32 last year. This is in contrast to the 101,763 attendance announced live at the event and restated in WWE press releases. The event was held on on April 3, 2016, at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. In February WWE CEO Vince McMahon...

www.fightful.com

Oh my God who cares. Only wrestling fans would continue to argue about the attendance of a ppv from 3 months ago. Christ almighty

In a thread called “AEW ticket sales,” you find people talking about AEW ticket sales. What sort of discussion are you expecting to see when you decided to click on this thread?

it was 3 months ago, but we just recently got new info about the certified attendance from the City of Arlington, which sparked new discussion on it

 

[Hotdiggity11]

Oh my God who cares. Only wrestling fans would continue to argue about the attendance of a ppv from 3 months ago. Christ almighty

Maybe this thread (You know, the AEW ticket sales thread) isn’t for you? Trying to dictate what people should and shouldn’t be discussing in a thread designed for that topic is always a hilarious trope.

 

[Hotdiggity11]

Looks like Dynamite/Collision will be a low attended go-home show. Wrestledream definitely has no fan interest momentum going into it. Dynamite will probably get 2000-2300 tickets distributed. They did 3600 2 years ago almost to the day.

 

[Prosper]

WrestleDream should be a good show when it’s all said and done, but it’s unfortunately pretty filler-y due to all the injuries and storyline absences, it’s kind of a transition PPV filled with rematches, there’s no real excitement to this one even from the diehards so I wouldn’t expect a massive walk up on Saturday. They will probably land at like 4.5k.

This week’s Dynamite is in the same sluggish market. Can’t win them all.

Full Gear on the other hand in Nov should be lit, I might be going to that one live. Hopefully Swerve is back…or too soon? MJF should be back too. Hopefully Omega vs Fletcher happens there.

Blood and Guts could have a great turn out too but I don’t know how well it will do if it’s just for the women.