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Post by BayleyTiffyCodyCenaJudyHopps on Nov 13, 2013 1:22:34 GMT -5
Speaking with a clear-cut obvious bias, St. Louis is an extremely solid choice for a future Mania.
The only hiccups I can think of are: - Attendance, as Busch Stadium is easily the best option to showcase it (Edward Jones Dome probably isn't feasible, considering that its main tenant is owned by Stan ENIS Kroenke and it's also a dated looking dump at this point), so WWE would have to settle for a possible attendance of 50,000+ rather than the 65,000 to 70,000+ events they've been gunning for lately - Possible setup/scheduling conflicts, as it would cut fairly close to a Cards home opener
But it's definitely in a major wrestling area with history out the wazoo (Freddie Blassie, Lou Thesz, Harley Race, Randy Orton, Wrestling At The Chase, Sam Muchnick, etc). And if Safeco Field and the Mariners can manage, so can Busch and the Cardinals, IMO.
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Post by Urfarkendarf on Nov 13, 2013 1:26:53 GMT -5
You miss the point completely. It isn't about if it's easy to get to or nice for tourists. Nevada is nice for tourists but because it's not a hotbed for the company the last WM they had there had a weak crowd. Ditto Arizona. Same as Indiana in 1992. If you take the showcase event outside of the sphere of 'hotbed' cities, you run the risk of having it met with a luke-warm reaction. We either accept that hot territories exist or we don't. Montana won't suddenly become a great venue for WM if it becomes a massive tourist hotspot because it's never been a WWE place. If you take WWE outside of it's core areas for a big event, regardless of how great Trip Advisor says it is, you risk losing the energy that you'd get elsewhere. I'm just saying for a flagship event it may have been better to go to a flagship town or city. New Orleans has never hosted a WM so it might be a great venue. But there is recent evidence to show how taking the show to a 'non WWE' place, can negatively impact on ticket sales and atmosphere. As we saw with Phoenix. I'm sure this argument in 2010 would have been reacted to the same way "Phoenix is great, your argument is dumb" Yet WM was a hard sell and the crowd largely lethargic. That might be because it wasn't WWE territoriality or the card was weak or economic climate or any number of things. But to call raising the issue 'dumb' wouldn't be all that smart itself. So your argument is to hold it only in areas where WWE has a foothold? This isn't 1985 or even 1999. WWE is the only major wrestling federation in this country and has been for over a decade now. There's no longer territorial bias. You keep bringing up Phoenix. What exactly did we see with Phoenix? According to Observer These are the top WWE gates ever: 1. Wrestlemania 29 (4/7/13): $10,000,000 (* estimate as of now) 2. Wrestlemania 28 (4/1/12): $8,290,000 3. Wrestlemania 25 (4/5/09): $7,211,673 4. Wrestlemania 27 (4/3/11): $6,268,391 5. Wrestlemania 24 (3/3/08): $5,854,590 6. Wrestlemania 26 (3/28/10) $5,529,172 7. Wrestlemania 23 (4/7/07): $5,380,000 8. Wrestlemania 18 (3/17/02): $3,864,033 #6 is Phoenix. What did we see with Phoenix? A flat crowd? A top ten (as of now) gate is not good enough? At the time, it was the 3rd largest gate in WWE history and looking at the #s its not that far off from 24. Hell, I was at 29 which is the largest gate in history and in the NY metro area no less, and that shit was COMPLETELY flat until Taker/Punk. If the show isnt good on paper, its not going to be as exciting as it could be, no matter where its held. BTW, 25 was held in Houston. Houston is not far from New Orleans and having been to both places, I can definitely say I'd rather go to New Orleans than Houston. Its a great place to hold an event like this. You still have not made an argument against it. New Orleans is not Phoenix.
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Post by 1 Free Moon-Down with Burger on Nov 13, 2013 2:17:13 GMT -5
I really hope Philly isn't the venue for 31. I can't go back to the cold. Watching wrestling in the freezing cold isn't much fun.
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Steveweiser
Dalek
Mickie Mickie You're So Fine... Hey Mickie!
THE GRAPS
Posts: 50,249
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Post by Steveweiser on Nov 13, 2013 3:55:37 GMT -5
Mania is never for the locals anymore, it's just a location. The good majority of fans who go these days are out of towners, a lot of them foreigners. Mania could be in Wyoming or South Dakota for all we'll know, and they'll still sell it out and get great reactions for the big matches.
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Boo!
Dennis Stamp
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Post by Boo! on Nov 13, 2013 6:33:06 GMT -5
Mania is never for the locals anymore, it's just a location. The good majority of fans who go these days are out of towners, a lot of them foreigners. Mania could be in Wyoming or South Dakota for all we'll know, and they'll still sell it out and get great reactions for the big matches. Well maybe but the last two WMs that took place outside of WWE's traditional heartlands - Phoenix and Atlanta - tickets were a much harder sell. It may just be a coincidence or it could be that in a boom period, outside of its 'home turf' that any event, even a WM, would struggle to sell out. Regardless of how easy it is to travel to. This is something we won't know for months and months but it would not surprise me if the paid attendance on the evening comes in at less than 50,000 for a crowd that'll be around the 70,000 mark.
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Post by Red Impact on Nov 13, 2013 7:28:32 GMT -5
New Orleans is one of the top tourist destinations in the country, and far outshines Phoenix in terms of attractive vacation spots. People travel to wrestlemania, and New Orleans is an easier sell than the desert. There's a reason it's used so much for special events.
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Post by molson5 on Nov 13, 2013 9:01:39 GMT -5
Did you think Wrestlemania 29, right in the middle of the WWE's "hotbed", had a hot crowd?
I think you're just not getting the New Orleans thing (are you from the U.S.?). New Orleans is maybe the #1 big time-sporting-event host in the entire United States. The Super Bowl and the Final Four have long bidding processes to determine a host, and New Orleans has won more often than any other location for both events. It's a promoter's dream location. People actually want to go there, they have the tourist infrastructure, relatively cheap flights from anywhere, and the city loves it because the party atmosphere, restaurants, and French Quarter encourage tourists to spend tons of money when they're in town for an event. So this is their priority as a city, this is what they do better than anyone else. The comparison with Phoenix is just preposterous.
And the "hotbed" thing - who cares? The last "hotbed"-area crowd was dead. The fact that a place was a WWWF territory in the 50s through the early 80s really doesn't have any correlation with how "hot" a crowd is today. The fact that Bruno Sammartino once wrestled somewhere a lot doesn't make modern crowds louder. New Orleans has all the ingredients for a loud crowd - liberal alcohol laws, indoor venue (I'm not sure if you realize how much louder domes are than outdoor venues, and it won't be cold and rainy), easy to get to (unlike in NYC, you won't have to jump on a bus and go through traffic for more than 45 minutes just to get to the show). And New Orleans will attract a younger, drunker, more blue collar fan, unlike NYC, where hotels cost a fortune and the crowd tend to skew a lot older. And more importantly, it has all of the ingredients to give the WWE what their primary goal is - to have the largest grossing event in the history of pro wrestling. They'll accomplish that, the only question is by how much they'll do it.
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Post by HisRoyalGreeness on Nov 13, 2013 10:28:25 GMT -5
Molson5, you are right about domes being loud. It gets loud as shit in the Superdome. That's why visiting quarterbacks tend to have a hard time when playing the Saints. I firmly believe that's going to be the case at 'Mania. That crowd will be hot, locals and otherwise. I can't wait.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 13, 2013 12:33:06 GMT -5
As a foreigner I'm really considering going to Wrestlemania this year because I always wanted to go to New Orleans and the hotels are pretty cheap compared to other tourist attraction USA towns. I balked out going to mania last minute last year because I figured I would have more money next year and it would be somewhere cooler then NY.
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