How to sell 75,000 tickets for the Rumble

TWJC: The Beginning

Royal Rumble Winner
I see a lot of discussion about the 2017 Royal Rumble. WWE just announced that it's returning to the Alamodome in San Antonio. For those of you who don't know, the Alamodome is huge. It can seat (with standing room), 72,000 for a football game.

I don't know if WWE will have trouble selling it out without getting gimmicky (the Rumble is special and intriguing enough). I'm not sure what the max capacity is for the Alamodome with a wrestling configuration.

I'd like to hear some ideas for how to get an enormous number.

My main suggest is this: Make every previous winner eligible to enter and make it 40 men. 40 men doesn't work with just the regular roster. You have maybe 3-4 guys from each brand, so 6-8 total that could conceivably win. So minus the cool spots and surprise entrants, you're mostly going "5..4..3..2..1...meh".

However, if you fill the 10 extra spots with previous winners (Austin, Flair, Michaels, Taker, Rock, Batista, Mysterio, Triple H, Mr. McMahon, and maybe Hogan), you can generate a ton of intrigue even though we know they won't (shouldn't?) win.

What do you think? Let's hear some ideas.
 
Yeah, because Steve Austin will come out of a near 15 year retirement to make up the numbers in a Rumble match he won't win.
 
Well when business was bad the WWE was able to get 60,000 in Royal Rumble 1997. All WWE had to do was either sell the tickets for cheap (like $5 or $10) or give the tickets away.

So if that worked back then who is to say the same won't work now.
 
Well they've already announced it will be a 30 man Rumble. Of course that could always change later.

Also I highly doubt half the names if not all of them would not show up. The Rock can't seem to wrestle anymore with the stipulations put on him by movie studio's, Austin does his thing at Mania and that's about it. Mysterio isn't even on the roster, Batista - see Rock, Michaels has no interest either. The only two who might want to show up and put on some sort of a match would be HHH and Vince. Although Vince's health isn't what it used to be. And does anyone want to see Flair back in the ring? I don't.

To tell you the truth I don't know why the WWE always thinks the bigger the stadium the better for these PPV's. They are really taking a lot of good wrestling cities out of the loop by only going for huge stadiums. That being said, I'm not sure the Rumble could sell out a 70,000 plus arena. Mania yes but the Rumble well I don't know.

With two championships in play here we know the winner will headline Mania, but do they get to decide which title they want considering the titles are on different brands. And does the winner and whoever is champion headline Mania and does that make the other title seem a little lower in stature? This is something they have to work out before the event.
 
I don't think the Rumble should go above 30 anymore. It was a valid experiment at 2011 but the problem with the Rumble is that it went too long and you can tell by the booking they had no clue how to fill the time.

Once Cena eliminated the Nexus you could tell they were just going by the motions afterwards (and there was still 18 entrants left).
 
They won't. They only got to 48,000 paid with Shawn Michaels going after the WWF title in his hometown. 25% of the people there got in for free.
 
You have the Rumble match. You can get HHH and Taker to wrestle.

A Goldberg return, with Goldberg having his first match in 13 years could happen.

Rumble 97 didn't have anything special on the card really and they still pulled out 60,000 people.

If they get the full squad for the event (Taker, HHH, Lesnar, Cena), it will sell out.

Plus you give Rock a call and advertise that the Rock will be at the event and the sheeps will go to see the Rock shooting lightning from his butt.
 
Unless they follow the MLS model and cut the seating capacity, there will be a bunch of empty seat unless they go to San Antonio's waterfront area (The "tony" one) where all the people go, a drop tickets from the plane. 25K would be great. Just not in the Alamodome. 30 man rumble? It works. Especially if Nakamura wins it.
 
They won't sell 75,000 seats for a Royal Rumble in Texas without touting it as a Wrestlemania calibre event, and even then that would be an extremely difficult number, bordering on impossible, to reach. Mania basically only sold 10-15,000 more tickets last year (although they'll tell you it was more) and fans had to come from all over the world for WWE to hit that number. The RR is no Wrestlemania. The only reason Wrestlemania drew that many fans in the first place is because it was Wrestlemania. The card could suck, the product could suck, there could be no legitimate draws appearing at the event, and Mania would still sell a ridiculous amount of tickets because it offers a "once in a lifetime experience". The Rumble as an event has no such drawing power.

Poster above me basically touched on what would have to happen. Huge, marquee match-ups (Taker/Cena, Brock/Goldberg, etc.), legend appearances (Rock, Austin, Hogan), and above all, a really intriguing story heading into the Rumble match. Fans have to be legitimately interested in who's going to walk out as Mania's #1 contender. This would never happen though because everything I listed above has been reserved for Mania for the past however many years. I doubt they would pull out all the stops for the Rumble with Mania only 2 and a half months away.

Are they even trying to sell 70,000? That number seems like a ridiculously high mark to set...
 
I was going to suggest having Shawn Michaels play a role as a Guest Referee or something like that, but he couldn't even sell out the Alamodome when he was a main event wrestler. But still, given that it's San Antonio, Michaels should/will be there. He also has a lot of history with the Rumble in general.

Booking Brock Lesnar in a marquee match is a given, but they need to make sure they find the right opponent for him. Honestly, if Kevin Owens is still the champion, and is booked strongly, Lesnar vs. Owens for the belt would work.

I also wouldn't be suprised if we see Triple H compete. The Triple H match could be the one that Michaels is involved in. Seth Rollins vs. Triple H with HBK as the Guest Referee would make sense.

As for the Rumble itself, given that the brandsplit is back and you have two world titles that mean less, there are conceivably more potential winners. If Finn Balor is healthy enough to return at the Rumble, I probably wouldn't make that a shocking reveal. It would be a smarter business move to use vignettes around the whole "Demon King" personna to hype up his return at the Rumble, build anticipatation for the match, and sell some fucking tickets.

Because they'll need to sell A LOT of tickets.

Also it's Texas, so the Undertaker. Announce that the Undertaker will be in the Rumble. It's a battle royal so you can protect him and hide his limitations.
 
They won't sell 75,000 seats for a Royal Rumble in Texas without touting it as a Wrestlemania calibre event, and even then that would be an extremely difficult number, bordering on impossible, to reach. Mania basically only sold 10-15,000 more tickets last year (although they'll tell you it was more) and fans had to come from all over the world for WWE to hit that number. The RR is no Wrestlemania. The only reason Wrestlemania drew that many fans in the first place is because it was Wrestlemania. The card could suck, the product could suck, there could be no legitimate draws appearing at the event, and Mania would still sell a ridiculous amount of tickets because it offers a "once in a lifetime experience". The Rumble as an event has no such drawing power.

Poster above me basically touched on what would have to happen. Huge, marquee match-ups (Taker/Cena, Brock/Goldberg, etc.), legend appearances (Rock, Austin, Hogan), and above all, a really intriguing story heading into the Rumble match. Fans have to be legitimately interested in who's going to walk out as Mania's #1 contender. This would never happen though because everything I listed above has been reserved for Mania for the past however many years. I doubt they would pull out all the stops for the Rumble with Mania only 2 and a half months away.

Are they even trying to sell 70,000? That number seems like a ridiculously high mark to set...

And this leads to the REAL question: How do you sell 65,000+ tickets from the Rumble, but still keep the special matches for WrestleMania? WWE would have to deliver two Wrestlemanias in the span of 3 months.

You don't want the Rumble to have a stronger card than Mania, but you also want to sell the tickets. So how do you do it?

Another, interesting idea, would be to have Undertaker vs Cena I at the Rumble and Undertaker vs Cena II at WrestleMania.
 
I don't know if it will sell 75,000 tickets, but if hyped right it will sell a lot- Undertaker vs AJ Styles for the wwe title. That match could be in the caliber of the HBK vs Undertaker matches from 25 and 26. Hey maybe HBK could come out of retirement to face AJ Styles. Either one of those dream matches would be suitable for an event like this.
 
Have The Undertaker wrestle on the card, not in Rumple match itself, maybe Cena vs The Undertaker? If Taker isn't on the card I'll be extremely disappointed. Of course Lesnar will wrestle. Triple H vs Rollins. Maybe an appearance from The Rock to set a match at WM33? Have Hogan return?
 
The magic number is 73,086. This stands as the Alamodome record. We all know Vince would be willing to part with his left testicle to break this record. If the WWE will be able achieve such a sizable accomplishment is debatable but they will surely give it their best effort.

Possible Strategies:

- Affordable Ticket/Packages

- Create a mini WM festival type atmosphere.

- NXT Takeover: Remember the Alamo

- Offer a lottery style prize for one hundred lucky fans where the grand prize(s) is a true VIP WM Package for two. Really go over the top here.

- Name Shawn Michaels Guest Host. This isn't major but everything helps.

- Hulk Hogan's return to the company. They've been teasing it.

- Announce Taker as a participant in the Rumble. Really tease a possibility of Taker going for the title on his last ride.

- Announce some major guests entrants. Yes the surprises are nice but rumors don't move tickets.

- Brock Lesnar challenges for the Universal Championship.

- Seth Rollins vs. Triple H.
 
The thing is Vince is still set on having WWE seen in the same light as the NFL, NBA, etc which is ridiculous since he's not in the same stratosphere. However, it is not by chance the Super Bowl is the following Sunday in a Texas city so no surprise what he’s trying to do here.

Problem is WWE is further away from the mainstream than it’s ever been. Go ask 100 random people on the street who any of the current full timer roster is (I don’t care who you use: Rollins, Reigns, Owens) and not more than 2 people would know who any of them are. So my point being, in any other era; even if not a wrestling fan the general public still knew who the main guys were. They were celebrities.

Today’s stars would be less known to the general public than contestants voted off B level reality shows in the first round.

So basically Vince has to bring in all the part timers / old timers to move the tickets or he’ll have to paper the heck out of the dome giving away at least 20k tickets. No need to waste any nostalgic value brining in the part timers / old timers since we already know he needs to do that every WM.
 
I agree that the Undertaker in the Rumble would be a good move. You wouldn't need a lot of build up and he probably wouldn't need to appear before the Rumble. You could just have Foley announce that's the Taker is going to be there and air a few vignettes. You can protect the Taker physically and set up for his Wrestlemania feud.
They could have Cena challenge for the title and finally defeat Styles to earn his 16th title reign. Although I'm not sure if they can stretch this feud until Rumble.
As for Lesnar I think him vs Owens is the way to go. It doesn't seem like they are going to continue the Lesnar vs Orton feud. But hopefully they keep the Belt off Lesnar and this is just a way to set up for his Wrestlemania opponent.
 
Some of the cards and ideas that other posters have put forth is viable, but the Rumble is in January just a couple of months before Mania itself. You can't run two huge shows that close together. What you risk doing is taking your Mania attendees away. And if truth was to be told, I would rather go to Mania than San Antonio. Much more to see and do in Orlando. A lot of people won't be able to go to both.

Someone said that Vince is trying to put the WWE in the same vein as football, baseball and basketball, and in a way that's true, but it only works once a year and that's at Mania. We also don't know what kind of run up there will be this year for the Rumble and Mania with a new brand split in effect. Maybe Vince should wait until next year to start breaking attendance records.
 
I think it could be done but you'd need to add some names to the roster to see it happen.

I'd build the singles matches to the following

WWE Title
AJ Styles v Samoa Joe

Universal Title Ladder Match
Kevin Owens v Seth Rollins v Brock Lesnar

Women's Title Match
Sasha Banks v Bayley

and then top it up with a Rumble match that includes Cena, Undertaker, Orton, Ambrose, Reigns, Nakamura, Zayn, Jericho, Wyatt, Triple H and then non-roster guys, especially if TNA folds, from Kurt Angle to the Hardys to Bobby Lashley to Goldberg.

For those saying giving away Wrestlemania matches would be stupid, well of the listed above I'd only have Banks v Bayley go again at Wrestlemania and you could use the Rumble to set that up with a heel turn for Banks.
 
It's definitely possible for them to fill that arena if they play their cards right. They may have something up their sleeve if they feel so confident. Who really knows besides them? We can all speculate, but we don't have a clue what they have in store for the ppv.


I like some of the ideas so far tho, like...



Seth Rollins vs HHH with HBK as special guest ref.

&

Advertising Undertaker to be a participant in the Rumble



Also, have Cena go ahead and win that 16th title and get it out of the way already. Someone mentioned another match with Styles, I guess we can have a trilogy and have Cena come out on top...losing the the first two, but winning the last & winning the title would make it pretty even between the two.


If Undertaker vs Cena is going to be the match at Wrestlemania, then it HAS to be the American Badass Undertaker imo. That's my fav version of him, and he's much better on the mic as the ABA, and would make for a much more entertaining feud with Cena in the lead up to Mania. Have Taker come back to the Rumble on his motorcycle and hit his old music....they could keep that part as a surprise...fans would mark the phuck out.



Kevin Owens will prob not be the champ 3.5 months from now...thats over 1/4 of the year away. So I doubt it's him vs Brock. They could either bring up Samoa Joe and have him face Brock, or have Roman Reigns vs Brock II for the Universal title. IF they did decide to scrap or ignore the bit of build up they made for a Wrestlemania match between The Rock and HHH, then maybe they could include The Rock in a Roman Reigns- Brock Lesnar II match in some capacity. Maybe advertise Rock being at the event in some capacity, and maybe he makes the save for Reigns to win setting up a Rock vs Brock match at Mania. I'd prefer HHH vs Rock since they started it already, but I wouldn't mind Rock vs Brock at Mania either.


Also, I doubt Goldberg is ready to wrestle IF he even does come back, by the Rumble. Guy said himself on ESPN that he's gotta get back in wrestling shape...he's like 100 years old so that'll take a while.


With all that said...



Advertise The Rock being in attendance for the event

Have HHH use his COO authority to instate HBK as special guest ref, but then have Mic Foley use his GM authority to make Stone Cold the special guest enforcer for the match so that his boy Seth Rollins is safe.



-Seth Rollins vs HHH w/ HBK as special guest ref & Stone Cold as enforcer

-Roman Reigns vs Brock Lesnar II - Universal Title (The Rock runs in)

-AJ Styles (c) vs John Cena - WWE Title

-Royal Rumble (advertising The Undertaker as a participant)



These matches would lead to Mania matches...



-The American Badass Undertaker vs John Cena (c)- WWE Title

-The Rock vs Brock Lesnar



...I'd take that.
 
They won't sell 75,000 seats for a Royal Rumble in Texas without touting it as a Wrestlemania calibre event, and even then that would be an extremely difficult number, bordering on impossible, to reach. Mania basically only sold 10-15,000 more tickets last year (although they'll tell you it was more) and fans had to come from all over the world for WWE to hit that number. The RR is no Wrestlemania. The only reason Wrestlemania drew that many fans in the first place is because it was Wrestlemania. The card could suck, the product could suck, there could be no legitimate draws appearing at the event, and Mania would still sell a ridiculous amount of tickets because it offers a "once in a lifetime experience". The Rumble as an event has no such drawing power.

Poster above me basically touched on what would have to happen. Huge, marquee match-ups (Taker/Cena, Brock/Goldberg, etc.), legend appearances (Rock, Austin, Hogan), and above all, a really intriguing story heading into the Rumble match. Fans have to be legitimately interested in who's going to walk out as Mania's #1 contender. This would never happen though because everything I listed above has been reserved for Mania for the past however many years. I doubt they would pull out all the stops for the Rumble with Mania only 2 and a half months away.

Are they even trying to sell 70,000? That number seems like a ridiculously high mark to set...
That's how many it seats. Unless they want a shitload of blacked off area/empty seats, why wouldn't they?


I also don't think it's that crazy despite being so close to Wrestlemania. Wrestlemania will draw 70,000 with higher ticket prices and a global audience.

People don't realize that San Antonio is the 7th most populous city (not metro, metro only has about 2,200,000 people) in the US. That part of the country is growing very fast. San Antonio is also just a 2 1/2 hour drive from Houston (6,000,000 in the metro) and 1 1/2 drive from Austin (2,000,000 metro).

So you have a city that is a days drive for over 10,000,000 people. Make the tickets affordable and people in these cities can go to both the Rumble and Mania.
 
The poster ahead of me summed it up exactly. WWE wont have a problem selling out the royal rumble. I just bought my tickets and Im driving from Houston.
 
The way the WWE can sell 75,000 tickets for the Royal Rumble is to make it a 6 hour event which includes a 2 hour pre-show. Sell it as the biggest Royal Rumble in history.

Royal Rumble Pre-show matches
WWE Cruiserweight Championship Title match
WWE United States Championship Title match
WWE Intercontinental Championship Title match

Royal Rumble card
WWE Smackdown Women’s Championship Title match
WWE Raw Women’s Championship Title match
WWE Smackdown Tag Team Championship Title match
WWE Raw Tag Team Championship Title match
WWE World Championship Title match
WWE Universal Championship Title match
50 Man Royal Rumble match (Champions and SuperStars in the Championship Title matches are all excluded from the Royal Rumble match)

That's how you put @$$es in seats!!
 
jJCo5eJ.gif



this is the seating chart for royal rumble.


I bought 2 tickets for 90 bucks each in section 141. 141 is behind the stage damn near. please tell me this seating chart is wrong. I sure hope to god it is

the cheapest seats on the plaza level are in 129 based on the chart. :wtf:
 
Basically in order to answer this question, we need to look at what will draw money for this show, and it's:
A. a compelling rumble match story with at least 6-8 viable winners.
B. The Undertaker appears.
C. Shawn Michales appearance in a main match.
D.The Stone Cold show will open the PPV.
E. Good card in general(good world title matches etc.).
F. Finn Balor's return (if he has recovered).
G.John Cena will return.
H.The Rock will be the special guest host (some appearances during the night).

So before the show I will advertise that Taker returns, and Austin and Rock will both appear.
Also there is an NXT Takeover before the PPV.

In the show itself (key things):
-Steve Austin opens with the Stone Cold Show with The Undertaker. In it he announces that he will have his last match at WM 33, and his opponent will find out tonight. Then a gong is heard and he is gone from the ring with only his hat left behind. (aka. the WhatCulture - How WWE Should book The Undertaker's retierment).
-AJ Styles (C) vs John Cena where if Cena loses he cannot challenge for the WWE Title as long as Styles is champion. Cena is about to win where a gong is heard, and on the titantron is written the word "you". Styles then uses the distraction to phenomenal forearm Cena for the win.
-Kevin Owens (C) vs Brock Lesnar for the WWE title. Can go either way. I would have Owens retain clean.
-Seth Rollins vs Triple H in a Street Fight with Shawn Michales as the special guest referee. Writes itself, Rollins wins (HBK isn't 100% fair, Rock comes out to take out HBK, Rollins pedigrees HHH and hits him with the Pheonix Splash, and The Rock holds HBK's hand and count the 3 with it).
-Royal Rumble match - I will have as many viable winners in it: Finn Balor (returning), Roman Reigns, Dean Ambrose, Bray Wyatt, Randy Orton, Rusev, Shinsuke Nakamura (debuting), Samoa Joe (debuting after Survivor Series), The Miz and more.
In my eyes either Rusev, The Miz, Bray Wyatt or Samoa Joe need to win the Royal Rubmle Match.
But it's WWE's choice..
 
I had another idea.. It will sound like a travesty, but it works.

Wrestlemania always sells out, right? Shaq will be wrestling and you can have plenty other big matches take place there.

The Rumble though does not have the aura of Wrestlemania, so it will need one BIG match. Given the structure of the Rumble PPV, you can't really have multiple big matches like Wrestlemania. You have place for one big time match. That match is John Cena vs The Undertaker.

That's how you sell the Royal Rumble. And as far as Wrestlemania goes, you can have Cena, Taker, HHH, Lesnar, Orton in multiple singles matches, plus Shaq vs Big Show.

So, summary: Cena vs Taker is Wrestlemania worthy, but Wrestlemania can sell itself and the Rumble can't. So you place Cena vs Undertaker at the Royal Rumble.
 

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