Ticket sales for this month’s WWE WrestleMania 42 in Las Vegas have been moving a little slower than last year, which has become a significant point of conversation online over the last several months. Today’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter features an update on tickets from Dave Meltzer, and the two-night event still has yet to reach the 2025 benchmark, despite WWE taking measures like discounts and announcing John Cena as host. Samantha Burkardt/Getty Images

There are a few reasons for the drop in ticket sales, and none of them are all that mysterious. WWE made the decision to move WrestleMania 42 from its agreed-upon destination, New Orleans, to instead return to Las Vegas for a second year in a row. Company executives likely received a larger offer from the Las Vegas tourism board compared to NOLA, and Las Vegas is seen as more of a destination city that people will travel to for a show like WrestleMania.

That decision wound up backfiring on them. I’m no economist, but it seems like people all over the country are being a little more careful with their finances right now for various reasons. That means less people feel comfortable planning a trip to Vegas, especially if they were just there the year before. Plus, anyone who was used to buying tickets in years past is no doubt facing “sticker shock” at the cost of entry.

Beyond that, there’s also the fact that the card took a long time to come together, and it’s relatively light on high-profile matches. The two men’s world title bouts are doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of name recognition for the more casual audience.

Now that I’ve explained why all of this was inevitable from the moment they moved the show back to Vegas, let’s get to my real point: the people running companies like TKO/WWE need to understand that this idea of never-ending growth is a pipe dream. Each year, the company is supposed to show its shareholders that it’s making more money than it did the year before. They’ll only be able to do this for so long, however, and the more ruthlessly they milk their audience, the faster they’re going to hit that wall. It’d be nice if the executives to that lesson to heart this WrestleMania season, but I’m not exactly holding my breath.