U23 Attendance

[KennyEBHS]

Why Las Vegas? No one is in the stands. Why not hold it somewhere more wrestling-friendly?

[Bulldog]

Would it have been much better attended in Pittsburgh or Cleveland?  Im not so sure.  Historically, most freestyle events are not all that well attended, and I kinda feel like most families dont have a ton of extra spending money right now...  All that being said, I could be wrong.  

[de4856]

Well I looked at the UWW schedule and they have the Senior World’s scheduled for this same venue next September. So I hope it will be better attended. I know that some venues would be better but they may not have the airport, the hotels, and restaurants, so maybe that’s why they chose Vegas.
When I went to see the 2015 Worlds at the Orleans it was a ghost town for Greco and the Women, but it got packed for MFS. Anyway I hope people will attend and support our team and our sport. 

[RAFWiki]

UWW doesn't spend money on local promotion wherever they go, so it's not a USA specific problem.

They just don't care.

 

 

 

[BruceyB]

Realistically, who cares enough to go to U23 worlds? Especially if it involves the cost of traveling out of state, that's a large ticket price. There are probably at least half a dozen other events that are held annually in the US that I would travel to see before U23s enter the conversation.

I would think that holding the event somewhere in PA would get a lot more attendance just due to families and their kids going to watch high level wrestling, but honestly, I just don't know how many people are going out of their way to spend all day in an arena to watch U23s.

[MPhillips]

7 hours ago, BruceyB said:

Realistically, who cares enough to go to U23 worlds?

There was a time when folks barely reported on it.  The little sister of all divisions.

[El Luchador]

9 hours ago, KennyEBHS said:

Why Las Vegas? No one is in the stands. Why not hold it somewhere more wrestling-friendly?

My thoughts exactly. Vegas is a crap hole today. 

[Caveira]

People attend cklv.   (Prior to psu ruining the Xmas tournament).  
 

It’s not the city.  
 

 

 

Edited October 18 by Caveira

[dodacahadron]

10 hours ago, BruceyB said:

Realistically, who cares enough to go to U23 worlds?

hi there, lurker here who hasnt made an account prior to this, I did lol. made a weekend out of it with my dad and brother actually! bought all day passes for Saturday and it was an open seating arrangement, you could go anywhere for the most part; they were 90 dollars, which for a WORLD level event i was willing to pay for. dont get me wrong the attendance was very low, probably 500-750 people in attendance total for mfs (cant IMAGINE the ghost towns for greco and wfs...) but the camera angles were a bit misleading because they faced the side almost no one sat on since they looked to be blocked off from the top (little signs said no entry on the curtains).

I assume almost all of the crowd in attendance either lived in Vegas or drove in from California, socal in particular is crazy diverse so you'll find people willing to make the drive to Vegas and pay the (inflated) prices for... basically everything to cheer on their country. cant imagine anyone flying out for something like this, out of the question.

from what I saw, the people in attendance had a genuine love for wrestling in such an outspoken manner. the Iranians in particular were going crazy the whole time cheering their guys on, i guarantee that gave the iranian wrestlers a boost that helped them have a fantastic day. i can answer more questions and give more anecdotes but it was really fun. at the end of the day its still world level wrestling even if its considered "lower level". 

[MPhillips]

4 hours ago, dodacahadron said:

lurker here

Welcome...

[Simpleman424]

4 minutes ago, MPhillips said:

Welcome...

[MPhillips]

5 hours ago, dodacahadron said:

the Iranians in particular were going crazy the whole time

Same as it ever was...

[BruceyB]

On 10/18/2026 at 9:40 AM, dodacahadron said:

hi there, lurker here who hasnt made an account prior to this, I did lol. made a weekend out of it with my dad and brother actually! bought all day passes for Saturday and it was an open seating arrangement, you could go anywhere for the most part; they were 90 dollars, which for a WORLD level event i was willing to pay for. dont get me wrong the attendance was very low, probably 500-750 people in attendance total for mfs (cant IMAGINE the ghost towns for greco and wfs...) but the camera angles were a bit misleading because they faced the side almost no one sat on since they looked to be blocked off from the top (little signs said no entry on the curtains).

I assume almost all of the crowd in attendance either lived in Vegas or drove in from California, socal in particular is crazy diverse so you'll find people willing to make the drive to Vegas and pay the (inflated) prices for... basically everything to cheer on their country. cant imagine anyone flying out for something like this, out of the question.

from what I saw, the people in attendance had a genuine love for wrestling in such an outspoken manner. the Iranians in particular were going crazy the whole time cheering their guys on, i guarantee that gave the iranian wrestlers a boost that helped them have a fantastic day. i can answer more questions and give more anecdotes but it was really fun. at the end of the day its still world level wrestling even if its considered "lower level". 

Sorry that I'm just now responding. Welcome to the posters side of the boards. I appreciate you sharing your experience! Like you stated, I also would assume that the crowd was almost entirely relatively local (within a reasonable drive). It takes a real wrestling nerd (I mean that in the most complimentary way since that is why we are all here) to buy tickets and pay venue prices for food/drinks, hotel, etc. for a U23 event, even if it is the World Championships. I just don't think there are many of those types out there, let alone in Vegas or nearby. I am happy to hear you, your brother, and father had a good time with it. 

If you're willing to share: What were the craziest on-mat and off-mat antics you saw? I'd imagine it must have been pretty good vibes with the other fans since there had to be a feeling of "ah, we all really love wrestling!" between those of you that were excited to be there.

[Caveira]

55 minutes ago, BruceyB said:

Sorry that I'm just now responding. Welcome to the posters side of the boards. I appreciate you sharing your experience! Like you stated, I also would assume that the crowd was almost entirely relatively local (within a reasonable drive). It takes a real wrestling nerd (I mean that in the most complimentary way since that is why we are all here) to buy tickets and pay venue prices for food/drinks, hotel, etc. for a U23 event, even if it is the World Championships. I just don't think there are many of those types out there, let alone in Vegas or nearby. I am happy to hear you, your brother, and father had a good time with it. 

If you're willing to share: What were the craziest on-mat and off-mat antics you saw? I'd imagine it must have been pretty good vibes with the other fans since there had to be a feeling of "ah, we all really love wrestling!" between those of you that were excited to be there.

Curious your theory for the packed cklv finals 

 

[BruceyB]

12 minutes ago, Caveira said:

Curious your theory for the packed cklv finals

Well, if you read my previous post that Doda was responding to..

CKLV is an event with 100s of domestic athletes and it is currently the biggest regular season tournament of the college season. I would assume nearly, if not, everyone that frequents the "college wrestling" portion of this board would much rather attend CKLV than U23s. 

TLDR; People care about CKLV a lot more than U23s. College wrestling is king in America.

[Caveira]

18 minutes ago, BruceyB said:

Well, if you read my previous post that Doda was responding to..

CKLV is an event with 100s of domestic athletes and it is currently the biggest regular season tournament of the college season. I would assume nearly, if not, everyone that frequents the "college wrestling" portion of this board would much rather attend CKLV than U23s. 

TLDR; People care about CKLV a lot more than U23s. College wrestling is king in America.

I felt like a bunch including the op blamed the city : venue and not the overall lack popularity of international wrestling.   
 

It’s hard for me to stomach that Americans won’t travel for wrestling that they care about.  They absolutely will.  They will get on planes.  They will get hotels.   They will support it.   They will spend $$$$.   If…….  
 

If they care about it.  

[BruceyB]

1 minute ago, Caveira said:

I felt like a bunch including the op blamed the city : venue and not the overall lack popularity of international wrestling.   
 

It’s hard for me to stomach that Americans won’t travel for wrestling that they care about.  They absolutely will.  They will get on planes.  They will get hotels.   They will support it.   They will spend $$$$.   If…….  
 

If they care about it.  

Agreed. At risk of assuming what OP meant, I think the main point was that it would make more sense to hold the event somewhere with a high population of wrestling fans that live in a close proximity because people are more likely to show up at an event in their backyard than one that requires travel, and not many are going to travel for U23s.

[Caveira]

10 minutes ago, BruceyB said:

Agreed. At risk of assuming what OP meant, I think the main point was that it would make more sense to hold the event somewhere with a high population of wrestling fans that live in a close proximity because people are more likely to show up at an event in their backyard than one that requires travel, and not many are going to travel for U23s.

There are ~40,000 high school wrestlers in Cali.   ~3 hour drive to Vegas.  When I spent a lot of time I would see tons and tons of people drive from cali to Vegas just because it was Vegas.    There are 4k hs wrestlers in nevada… Arizona….. 

“Recent google” there are < 15,000 high school wrestlers in pa.   Including the girls 

Edited October 20 by Caveira

[RAFWiki]

12 minutes ago, BruceyB said:

Agreed. At risk of assuming what OP meant, I think the main point was that it would make more sense to hold the event somewhere with a high population of wrestling fans that live in a close proximity because people are more likely to show up at an event in their backyard than one that requires travel, and not many are going to travel for U23s.

RAF held their second event at Penn State assuming that Penn State fans would all show up - instead, it was their worst-attended event in history

College fans supporting their home team don't necessarily care about international wrestling

[BruceyB]

6 minutes ago, RAFWiki said:

RAF held their second event at Penn State assuming that Penn State fans would all show up - instead, it was their worst-attended event in history

College fans supporting their home team don't necessarily care about international wrestling

That is fair. Wasn't the turnout for WNO in Stillwater pretty poorly attended as well?

[BruceyB]

12 minutes ago, Caveira said:

There are ~40,000 high school wrestlers in Cali.   ~3 hour drive to Vegas.  When I spent a lot of time I would see tons and tons of people drive from cali to Vegas just because it was Vegas.    There are 4k hs wrestlers in nevada… Arizona….. 

“Recent google” there are < 15,000 high school wrestlers in pa.   Including the girls 

High school wrestlers generally aren't the ones buying tickets and paying for travel. Their parents are also probably more likely to save that travel money for them to compete in a big tournament. 

And Cali is ~3 hour drive to Vegas? Please tell me what percentage of Cali is within a 3 hr drive of Vegas..

[Caveira]

6 minutes ago, BruceyB said:

High school wrestlers generally aren't the ones buying tickets and paying for travel. Their parents are also probably more likely to save that travel money for them to compete in a big tournament. 

And Cali is ~3 hour drive to Vegas? Please tell me what percentage of Cali is within a 3 hr drive of Vegas..

Some.  Ha.  I dunno.  

[dodacahadron]

2 hours ago, BruceyB said:

What were the craziest on-mat and off-mat antics you saw? 

vibes were high in there, there was a mutual understanding that we were all there to watch wrestlers duke it out. theres a lot of small things (i can detail them more) but these were my off-mat highlights: 

• tons of fans of all nations. iranians, armenians, russians, kyrgyz, puerto ricans, indians, uzbeks, probably way more that i didn't see, cheering for their country. ton of iranians flags, saw two armenian flags.
  • few wrestler families supporting their kids, including the Bassett family, actually walked by them coming in. believe both families of jaskaran vs. bassett were present, the duality of jaskaran's family cheering and going nuts while bassett's family watched him lose after hanging a US flag over the railing was... 
• a lot of "red/blue passive!" from the audience, basically the international version of yelling stalling.
  • at some point, someone went "yellow passive!" and everyone laughed LOL. also heard "both passive!"
• all that yelling you hear in international competition? it's actually a dude (probably russian) from the stands screaming at the top of his lungs. pretty sure the wrestlers heard them more than their actual coaches.
• at one point, a group of kyrgyz dudes sat behind me and my brother to cheer on one specific kyrgyz wrestler and waved to him like they were friends (i think they were just fans).
• tons of wrestlers casually sat down in the stands and watched if they finished up (or were eliminated) for the day. Iran's Ebrahim Khari (61kg bronze) and Ahoura Khateri (65kg gold), strolled in and shook the hands of the iranian fans like it was an everyday thing! khari actually sat in front of me during saturday's finals; i didn't get a chance to speak to them but WOW that probably ain't happening at any other level. 
  • i saw khateri take a picture with some kids as we were leaving, he's cool like that.

i'll post the on mat separately, gotta sift through the matches i saw/remember. biggest thing was how personal it felt; everyone knew everyone, and if you didn't you were still included. very cool!

[dodacahadron]

2 hours ago, BruceyB said:

And Cali is ~3 hour drive to Vegas? Please tell me what percentage of Cali is within a 3 hr drive of Vegas..

if you know when to leave to avoid the traffic you can get to vegas from the LA region in maybe 4 hours... the more inland you are the shorter that time will be.

[Caveira]

37 minutes ago, dodacahadron said:

if you know when to leave to avoid the traffic you can get to vegas from the LA region in maybe 4 hours... the more inland you are the shorter that time will be.

I just googled it.   About 45-50% of Californias population is within a 4 hour drive to Vegas.  So in theory  more than all of wrestlers in pa (20k to 15k)