NJPW bombing in Dallas only 62 tickets sold since discount

[octopus]

Wrestling Observer Newsletter:

New Japan announced Kazuchika Okada, Tetsuya Naito, Jay White and Kota Ibushi for the G-1 Climax tournament. It’s a given they would all be there. I guess it was a way to try and kick-start ticket sales in Dallas. They discounted tickets last week which ended up being a hell of a lesson. The lesson is the people who want to see New Japan for the most part will pay the ticket price, but right now there is a number that, in this incarnation, without the former American top draws, they simply can’t run an NBA arena. As of several days after the tickets were discounted only 62 more tickets were sold. That led to the announcing of the names. Originally the way New Japan works is that they don’t announce who is in G-1 until after Dominion in June, but because they felt they needed something for Dallas, they announced the top four guys this week. Dallas also had no local advertising.

Ouch.

[Yamashita Enforcement Division]

I mean, it is really not a great date or venue for trying to get a basketball arena full of wrestling fans in one place paying for your product. And no local advertising a big mistake because of the aforementioned poor date/location to gather the wrestling fans.

It also isn't super helped by the visa issues that plagued the New Beginning USA tour, and the effect that had on consumer confidence.

Really just a perfect storm of bad business on the G1 USA show.

[Mister Pigwell]

Yeah, that's bad.
Used to be that NJPW talent would move a huge needle due to interest in the US but with it being more commonplace, the novelty may have worn off. That and the loss of Omega/Bucks puts a damper on things too.

[Joe Neglia]

And it's Dallas. People don't understand that to this day, Dallas is still scorched earth for pro wrestling. It begrudgingly accepted WWE finally back some time, but that's as far as it is willing to extend any sort of care for the business. Ever wonder why you almost never hear about Dallas indies? By all rights, should be a hotbed given its location, but nope.

[Mayonnaise]

I really should have held off on getting a ticket it seems. I couldn't even get on to Ticketmaster for a bit and then jumped on the first one I could thinking they were selling well. Thought this would probably be my only shot at catching NJPW live and looks like I might be right.

Anyway, yeah they really haven't done any promotion for it and WWE countered by running Raw here just 3 days before.

[Oh Cry Me a Screwball]

Weren't the tickets outrageously priced to begin with? If they wanted a good sized house, they should have started with aggressive pricing, especially if they hadn't announced the big names.

[corndog]

The prices are way too high, WWE sells tickets to their shows for half of that price. Looking at the ticket availability, it seems they are going to tarp off a good portion of the arena. I also wonder if Cuban gave them a good deal on the arena, since he likes the product?

[El Pollo Guerrera]

I've always heard that Dallas was a hard sell for the WWF... but why?

[thirteen3]

Apr 19, 2019 3:35:53 GMT -5 El Pollo Guerrera said:

I've always heard that Dallas was a hard sell for the WWF... but why?

Fritz Von Erich killed the business by being a scum f***.

[Natural Born Farmer]

Tickets being offered at 80-300 might have something to do with this. You can get cheap seats to the Mavs for 25.

[KAMALARAMBO: BOOMSHAKALAKA!!!]

Can we complain more about ROH’s part of the MSG show?

[The Dark Order Inferno]

This is almost Dixie era TNA level of not doing research before running a show.

[Deleted]

how many people in Dallas get AXS TV?

[HMARK Center]

So the word going around is that Harold Meij has been leading the promotional effort on the London-Copper Box show, while one of the other executives within Bushiroad is handling Dallas, can't remember who. Apparently, it kind of shows: the London show has a distinct logo, and I've heard there's more advertising for it, whereas with the Dallas show there's basically nothing.

If I had to wager, I'll bet that Mark Cuban gave them a deal on using the venue since he owns Axs TV, but it's kind of crazy that I'm not even getting things like YouTube ads announcing that tickets are available for Dallas now, as I certainly watch enough wrestling/NJPW related content there. And yeah, given that Dallas is kind of scorched Earth for wrestling and thus not a vibrant local market to draw curious people in (those ticket prices certainly weren't helping!), it's not a great combination.

Worse, MSG was basically the big money stateside show this year already: I flew out to LA in 2017, San Francisco last year, and if I didn't already live in north Jersey I'd have flown in for MSG this year, which is what I bet a lot of other fans did. Asking those fans to fly out to another show three months later, this one in a city that's not as much of a destination as LA, SF, or NYC, is probably a bridge too far.

Finally, add in one more component: some of the extra fans that might've been willing to travel to an extra show this year may be heading to Jacksonville or Las Vegas for the upcoming AEW shows, instead, and obviously there's a good deal of fans who likely have interest in both promotions. NJPW's now been to the states a few times, but AEW is going to be the fresh show on the block, so I can't blame anyone who'd opt to travel for Double or Nothing or Fight for the Fallen, instead.

Now, that all said...I'm seeing flight/hotel packages from Newark to Dallas for that weekend that don't exceed $400 per person, and with tickets getting discounted I'm starting to think I should give another NJPW trip some serious thought.

[YAKMAN is ICHIBAN]

Apr 19, 2019 6:48:02 GMT -5 The Dark Order Inferno said:

This is almost Dixie era TNA level of not doing research before running a show.

TNA ran The Palace of Auburn Hills for Slammiversary 2009.

Capacity - 24,276.

Attendance - 4000


I was there, and it was hilariously empty.

[corndog]

Apr 19, 2019 9:01:24 GMT -5 HMARK Center said:

So the word going around is that Harold Meij has been leading the promotional effort on the London-Copper Box show, while one of the other executives within Bushiroad is handling Dallas, can't remember who. Apparently, it kind of shows: the London show has a distinct logo, and I've heard there's more advertising for it, whereas with the Dallas show there's basically nothing.

If I had to wager, I'll bet that Mark Cuban gave them a deal on using the venue since he owns Axs TV, but it's kind of crazy that I'm not even getting things like YouTube ads announcing that tickets are available for Dallas now, as I certainly watch enough wrestling/NJPW related content there. And yeah, given that Dallas is kind of scorched Earth for wrestling and thus not a vibrant local market to draw curious people in (those ticket prices certainly weren't helping!), it's not a great combination.

Worse, MSG was basically the big money stateside show this year already: I flew out to LA in 2017, San Francisco last year, and if I didn't already live in north Jersey I'd have flown in for MSG this year, which is what I bet a lot of other fans did. Asking those fans to fly out to another show three months later, this one in a city that's not as much of a destination as LA, SF, or NYC, is probably a bridge too far.

Finally, add in one more component: some of the extra fans that might've been willing to travel to an extra show this year may be heading to Jacksonville or Las Vegas for the upcoming AEW shows, instead, and obviously there's a good deal of fans who likely have interest in both promotions. NJPW's now been to the states a few times, but AEW is going to be the fresh show on the block, so I can't blame anyone who'd opt to travel for Double or Nothing or Fight for the Fallen, instead.

Now, that all said...I'm seeing flight/hotel packages from Newark to Dallas for that weekend that don't exceed $400 per person, and with tickets getting discounted I'm starting to think I should give another NJPW trip some serious thought.

Yeah, it's a perfect storm of reasons. Also, why did they do such a huge arena? It's a 20,000 and the G1 finals are in a 14,000+ seater. As I said in my other post, I am guessing/hoping Mark Cuban gave them a good deal so it's not going to lose money. But they are going to have to start advertising and get deals going just to get to about 6-7,000 where the attendance doesn't look like a complete embarrassment.

[Deleted]

NJPW bombing Dallas?

Jeez. I would think this'd be more of a news story than just a thread on FA---oh wait, not that kind of bombing....

[Muskrat]

Dallas being scorched earth is definitely a big contributor. But the fact is, there are only a finite amount of wrestling fans. And only a small portion of those can or will pay to go to a fly in show. And an even smaller portion of those can afford to do that multiple times a year. And with Mania/MSG Show, Double or Nothing, G1 and All In 2 all in a 6 month span, it was inevitable one of them was gonna tank or draw entirely off local fans.

And I’d say NYC, Vegas, and Chicago are all better destinations for fly in shows.

[salz4life]

Apr 19, 2019 11:15:46 GMT -5 Muskrat said:

Dallas being scorched earth is definitely a big contributor. But the fact is, there are only a finite amount of wrestling fans. And only a small portion of those can or will pay to go to a fly in show. And an even smaller portion of those can afford to do that multiple times a year. And with Mania/MSG Show, Double or Nothing, G1 and All In 2 all in a 6 month span, it was inevitable one of them was gonna tank or draw entirely off local fans.

And I’d say NYC, Vegas, and Chicago are all better destinations for fly in shows.

I'm in the Chicagoland area and would've paid $80 to see New Japan. I'm probably in the minority, however. I'm not travelling to Dallas to see it.

[Chainsaw]

Sadly, if I could afford it, I wouldn't mind going out there to see NJPW, but it's a long way out. It's not NYC, it's a hell of a trip from the East Coast.

Also, Dallas, ew.

I think some of it could be due to people spending so much to go to all the WM Weekend stuff, now people may not have the money to go right now.