WWE Sets Wrestlemania Dates until 2023, Eyes Vegas and International Venues
The WWE has officially announced Wrestlemania locations for the next three years. Tampa Bay will host the event this year, while Dallas will host at the Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium next year. Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium will host in 2023. The WWE plans to have fans in attendance at this year’s event but has not announced how many.
Originally, Wrestlemania was supposed to be in Tampa Bay last year, but the COVID-19 pandemic forced its postponement. Likewise, SoFi Stadium had been initially slated for a 2021 booking. “The City of Inglewood looks forward to the opportunity to host WrestleMania in 2023 and celebrates the deferral of this year’s event to Tampa Bay so they can have their rightful WrestleMania moment,” Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. said in a statement. “Our time will come.”
As expected, the WWE has seen an expected loss from postponed or canceled live events, but it has gained in other areas such as consumer products and media revenue. Now its goal is to get fans safely back into stadiums as quickly as possible.
“We need to bring fans back into arenas, live ticketed fans, to help offset some of those costs,” said Stephanie McMahon, chief brand officer of the WWE. Without the audience, the WWE has invested into technology attempts to help fans feel like they are still sitting in the front row. “When you’re a performance-based organization, you really feed off that live crowd interaction, so the production—the pyro, the lasers and the drone cameras—is an investment. It’s money into our core.”
And while the next three Wrestlemania locations are set, the WWE is interested in other new stadiums both domestically and overseas.
“Whenever you’re able to match stadiums with incredible destinations, like Las Vegas, that’s a discussion we want to have,” said John Saboor, executive vice president of special events. “We also want to keep an open mind, perhaps the potential of traveling outside of North America. This is a global celebration so we always want to keep a global focus.”
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