Eric Bischoff Warns WWE’s Ticket Price Hike Could Destroy Generational Fanbase

Eric Bischoff isn’t holding back when it comes to WWE’s latest direction under TKO—and this time, it’s not just about Saudi Arabia.

During the September 13, 2025 episode of 83 Weeks, Bischoff and Raj Giri took aim at WWE’s recent shift in ticket pricing following comments made by TKO President Mark Shapiro at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference.

Shapiro’s comment—that WWE had “room to grow ticket yield” because Vince McMahon previously kept prices affordable for families—didn’t sit well with Bischoff. While he acknowledged the logic behind raising prices from a business standpoint, he warned that it could eventually backfire in a massive way.

“Of course, in the short term, you’re going to make more money. As long as the market will bear it, you can keep raising prices until you finally find the point where you’ve gone too far…”

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But Bischoff didn’t stop there. He shifted the conversation to what truly built wrestling’s empire in the U.S.—its accessibility to families and kids. According to him, pricing out families isn’t just risky. It’s potentially fatal for WWE’s long-term future.

“One of the reasons that professional wrestling as we know it in the United States has been as successful as it has since the beginning of television time is because it’s family entertainment. It’s a generational experience.”

He made it clear that families are the lifeblood of wrestling’s future—and when you price them out, you’re burning the bridge to the next generation.

“Parents could take their kids and their kids’ friends, and you could go to an event like WWE or AEW or TNA and afford to bring them. Those kids grow up, and they’ll bring their kids one day. If you break that generational cycle, you break the foundation of your audience.”

His final warning couldn’t have been clearer:

“Short-term, you’ll make more money. Long-term, you risk losing the next generation of fans.”

As WWE continues to expand globally and ramp up premium pricing under the TKO umbrella, longtime veterans like Bischoff are sounding the alarm. There may be big profits on the horizon—but at what cost to the heart of the audience that kept the business alive for generations?

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