WWE president Nick Kkan spoke at the CAA World Congress of Sports, which bills itself as “the largest and most prestigious sports business conference in North America”, on Wednesday (April 15) in Los Angeles. The Sporting Tribune was in attendance, and shared a report with quotes from the long-time sports media exec on a couple of the hotter topics he addressed.
Despite the ongoing Israel & U.S./Iran war that’s destabilizing the entire region, Khan continued to pitch WrestleMania 43 for Riyadh next
year and his company’s relation with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in general, saying:
“We’re doing WrestleMania next year in Saudi. First time ever, WrestleMania will be outside the United States or Canada. We’ve had a big, fruitful partnership with them.”
Plans for WWE’s usual second annual show in the KSA (Royal Rumble was already held there in January, before attacks started), weren’t mentioned by Khan, nor was he asked about a possible second 2026 show there. He did dismiss criticism of WWE and parent company TKO’s relationship with the House of Saud as coming from a “vocal minority”, and repeated one of his standard lines about the company’s decisions being driven “by ratings, revenue and relevancy”.
Khan also spoke about attendance for this year’s WrestleMania 42, which has become such a popular topic in the wrestling world that WWE wrote it into storylines for this weekend’s event in Las Vegas. He didn’t mention concerns about poor or slow ticket sales, but even his positive spin included some lowering of expectations:
“We’re feeling good. Last year we set records, which we set the year prior to that. So this year we think it’s going to get close to that record, but fingers crossed.”
Another of Khan’s pet phrases, ”the marketplace dictates the ticket price”, came up at the conference. He used it while arguing that consumer demand for the company’s product remains strong, with even lower-priced tickets sometimes being resold at higher rates via secondary outlets.
Any thoughts on what the man in charge of WWE had to say about upcoming WrestleManias? Share them with your fellow wrestling fans in the comments below, and stick with us all weekend for coverage of all things WrestleMania!
