Stephanie McMahon gives an important update on when the fans will possibly return
Stephanie McMahon recently spoke to AdAge and talked about multiple topics. One of the matters she discussed was the absence of a live crowd on WWE shows. While she did not have the exact date for when the crowds may return, she did say that they will return sooner rather than later.
Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world, most sporting events got canceled. However, WWE and some other wrestling promotions continued to hold TV tapings despite having no audience.
Even WWE's biggest show of the year - WrestleMania - took place with no audience in attendance. While some performance center recruits have been used as an audience lately, they don't create the vibe of a paying audience.
Here is what Cagesideseats (via Adage) has reported:
Stephanie McMahon said in an interview with AdAge that she thinks WWE will fans back in attendance at shows “sooner than later.”
Stephanie McMahon talks about the current situation
Stephanie McMahon also talked about how the current shows are volunteer-based and there is no pressure on the Superstars to attend the tapings if they don't want to
“It’s all optional, it’s volunteer-based. It’s up to them if they want to participate, we did have talent and crew members opt-out, and we do support that. We do testing before all programming. It is more advanced testing, it isn’t the rapid test, that does have false positives and negative, we want the best testing positive.''
She was hopeful that the live audience will return soon and wanted to let that be known.
“I think that happens sooner than later. So I’ll just throw that out there to the universe.”
It will be interesting to see when the crowd will finally return to WWE given the current situation. WWE had initially expected he crowds to return by SummerSlam this year. However, that has not happened.
There were plans for Brock Lesnar to make his return at SummerSlam which have now been canned due to lack of an audience. There are still travel restrictions all across the globe. Even though precautionary measures are in place, large crowd gathering should be avoided until the pandemic subsides.