Backstage Update Regarding WWE’s Decision To Go Through With Crown Jewel On Friday
As we have been reporting there has been an incredible amount of controversy surrounding WWE’s upcoming Crown Jewel Pay-Per-View on Friday from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The event came under heavy fire from multiple United States Senators and politicians after Saudi Arabia’s apparently involvement in the kidnapping and murder of American Journalist Jamal Khashoggi from the country’s embassy in Turkey earlier this month. Many had even urged WWE to cancel the event, and some stated the company should reconsider their business relationship with Saudi Arabia.
WWE Superstars John Cena and Daniel Bryan have both refused to compete on the event and even travel with the company to Saudi Arabia this week. With these two top Superstars now not apart of the upcoming Crown Jewel PPV on Friday, WWE has had to make even more last minute changes to the event.
At one point WWE had been reported to be frantically scrambling to find possible replacement locations to host Crown Jewel if they decided to relocate the event. There had even been reports that WWE had even considered cancelling the event altogether, however in the end the company decided to go ahead as planned and will indeed hold Crown Jewel this Friday from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
According to a new report from our friend Brad Shepard on WWE’s handling and reasoning behind their decision, the company knew that regardless of their decision to either cancel or go through with the event that their stocks would take a hit. Not only that, preparations had been underway for weeks prepping for Friday’s Crown Jewel event.
WWE also had to factor in other variables in their decision making process, such as the fact that ticket sales were down, as well as merchandise sales and TV ratings. Compile those factors with the drama surrounding Crown Jewel, you can see WWE had a difficult decision to make. If they had decided to cancel the event, that would jeopardize the huge deal worth millions and millions of dollars that they are in the first year of and that stocks are going to drop regardless of the outcome of their decision.
Regarding WWE’s Crown Jewel situation, Brad said:
“A source in #WWE further elaborating to me on #WWECrownJewel: “Both cancelling or confirming Crown Jewel was going to be a stock hit and that’s how they saw it. Keep in mind, people have been in Saudi Arabia building the set and prepping for the show for a couple weeks.
You were damned regardless and the stock was going down either way. There are a lot of other factors as well – ticket sales were down, merchandise sales were down and TV ratings were down. These things caught up with them a bit and then you throw in the Saudi drama.
But, if you cancel the Saudi show and risk hurting your multi, multi-million dollar deal, you’re stock is going to drop anyway.”
You can see Brad’s tweet’s regarding WWE’s decision to go through with Crown Jewel in Saudi Arabia below.
A source in #WWE further elaborating to me on #WWECrownJewel: “Both cancelling or confirming Crown Jewel was going to be a stock hit and that’s how they saw it. Keep in mind, people have been in Saudi Arabia building the set and prepping for the show for a couple weeks. Part 1
— Brad Shepard (@TheBradShepard) October 31, 2018
“You were damned regardless and the stock was going down either way. There are a lot of other factors as well – ticket sales were down, merchandise sales were down and TV ratings were down. These things caught up with them a bit and then you throw in the Saudi drama.” Part 2 https://t.co/ZkOSKM78TS
— Brad Shepard (@TheBradShepard) October 31, 2018
“But, if you cancel the Saudi show and risk hurting your multi, multi-million dollar deal, you're stock is going to drop anyway.“ Part 3 of 3 #WWE #WWECrownJewel #RAW #SDLive https://t.co/wqDMkFB3E1
— Brad Shepard (@TheBradShepard) October 31, 2018
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