Nick Piccone
Finally, WrestleMania has come back to Philadelphia.
It’ll be 25 years in between stops in the City of Brotherly Love for the wrestling [sports entertainment] industry’s biggest event of the year. Not only will WrestleMania return to Philly at Lincoln Financial Field, but it’ll be scattered across two nights on April 6 and April 7, 2024, as that has become the norm since the event in 2020.
Matt Breen of The Inquirer first reported the news Wednesday morning.
Many have been wondering when WWE would return to Philadelphia for its biggest show of the year, especially after many stops in New York and New Jersey in recent years. Some even circled 2026 as the possible year since Philadelphia will have a big attraction year as it celebrates the country’s 250th birthday – especially with the Major League Baseball All-Star Game and FIFA Men’s World Cup already penciled in for that year. WrestleMania will come to Philly two years before that.
“The Philadelphia Eagles are thrilled to partner with WWE as WrestleMania makes its much-anticipated return to Philadelphia in 2024,” said Eagles president Don Smolenski. “We are excited to help showcase the industry’s most iconic event in front of a global viewing audience and look forward to providing WWE fans in attendance with a first-class experience at Lincoln Financial Field.”
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“The Stadium District is a unique, invaluable asset to the City of Philadelphia, and we’re thrilled to help host a week’s worth of events surrounding WrestleMania 40 at the new Wells Fargo Center,” said Valerie Camillo, president of the Wells Fargo Center, which is undergoing a “full transformation” that will be finished before WrestleMania. “The South Philadelphia Stadium District is a real draw for major events like this one, and we’re working every day to create the world’s best sports and entertainment district right here on South Broad Street.”
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“We are proud to welcome WWE fans from around the world to Philadelphia to be a part of the historic 40th WrestleMania in 2024,” said Mayor Jim Kenney. “The weeklong series of events will help put a global spotlight on our great city while also generating a major impact for our local economy.”
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“We are thrilled to bring WrestleMania back to the City of Brotherly Love,” said WWE Executive Vice President of Special Events John Saboor. “We thank all of our local partners who were integral in making this long-awaited return a reality.”
WWE’s premiere television programming will also take place in Philadelphia that weekend, as Friday Night SmackDown on April 5 and Monday Night Raw on April 8, with the WWE Hall of Fame Ceremony likely occurring after the SmackDown taping on Friday night.
The last time WWE brought WrestleMania to Philly, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock headlined in the main event inside the First Union Center [now Wells Fargo Center] during the biggest boom period in modern professional wrestling. Austin would defeat The Rock to win the WWE Championship for a third time. While the statistics show the product was white-hot at the time, WrestleMania XV as an event was a miss. In fact, a lot of WWE’s product in 1999 doesn’t hold up well today, and it would be mere months away before they would lose Stone Cold Steve Austin for a year due to neck surgery. While the WWE product is struggling mightily today to please the fans, with Triple H heading creative, there is a positive outlook that, creatively, the product will improve sooner than later.
When WrestleMania emanates from Lincoln Financial Field, Vince McMahon will not be the company’s CEO, as he recently retired amid sexual misconduct allegations stemming back decades. This past Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported “WWE disclosed $14.6 million in previously unrecorded expenses paid personally by McMahon.”
McMahon’s daughter, Stephanie McMahon-Levesque, and Nick Khan, are currently co-CEOs of the company.
To casual viewers, WrestleMania coming to Philly may be a unique two-day venture for them, but it means a whole lot more for the wrestling business in general. Smaller independent companies will converge onto the city the entire week leading up to the event and the weekend of the event. You’ll see and hear media interviews from wrestlers every which way in every media outlet in this city, complete with any celebrities that may be involved in making an appearance at the event.
In The Inquirer story, Breen mentioned a study that was released by the Mayor of Arlington, Texas, and said this past year’s WrestleMania “generated an economic impact of $206.5 million for the Dallas/Arlington area,” and WWE said it was the “highest-grossing and most-attended event in company history.”
Philly has been a haven for professional wrestling for decades, which was the inspiration to create The Straight Shooters Podcast featuring myself and Vaughn Johnson, who has reported for The Inquirer and worked for the Philadelphia Eagles within the last 10 years. With the product becoming as stale as it has the last few years, Vaughn and I dive deep into the better years of professional wrestling and talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly for events that took place as we were growing up. We’ll certainly be talking more about WrestleMania heading to Philly every week for the next two years, so hit that subscribe button.
The Straight Shooters Podcast – myself and Vaughn Johnson – joined The Line Change host Jon Jansen on Fox Sports Radio The Gambler to discuss it all Wednesday night. You can hear that below.
You can follow Nick Piccone on Twitter (@_piccone) and e-mail him at [email protected]. You can read his pro wrestling articles on PhillyVoice here.
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