The WWE is reporting that the preliminary PPV buy rate for Wrestlemania 28 is 1.3 million buys worldwide. It also is reporting that global gross sales exceeded $67 million including the live event.
If I am reading the WWE’s release correctly, the gross sales includes the live gate which was originally reported as $8.9 million. The buy rate broke the 2007 WM which was 1.25 million buys according to F4WOnline. That Wrestlemania featured Donald Trump in a cameo role.
Broken down, the 1.3 million buys means about 700K domestic and 600K international.
Payout Perspective:
Is 1.3 million buys a disappointment? While there was an ESPN reporter that tweeted that the buy rate was closer to 2 million buys, we now know that was more speculation than reporting. The fact that the Rock was involved in the main event in his hometown and there was a year long run-up to this event makes 1.3 million somewhat of a disappointment. We shall see what this means for the WWE’s stock for the rest of this year. Last year, the company rode the financial wave of WM 27 so this could be a good sign for the company in its next earnings call.
Not very good domestic numbers. This was the big event they put all their muscle behind. They didnt use Brock but there were enough rumors he was on the card that he may as well been booked on it. Im sure most assumed he was who bought it. So they had Brock and all their big names behind it and do that number. They should have broke 1 million domestically alone.
Is it normal for them to get almost half from international markets? Which countries are those primarily coming from? We’re always told regarding the UFC and boxing that there are few foreign countries where the PPV model is considered viable.
@JamesG
As I understand it the WWE’s domestic market has fallen considerably since the rise of the UFC.
The UFC does also get a fair few of it’s buys from Canada, and thirdly but far less noticeably from Australia. For UFC 130 Meltzer mentioned that the majority of buys came from Canadian cities. I think there was an article here mentioning that for Jones-Shogun 400k came from the US while 85k were counted as international. So it shifts drastically depending on the fighter.
Boxing on the other hand does gain foreign PPV buys just like the UFC but they only report domestic buys, or specifically US HBO buys. Best example of this would be Manny vs Hatton which was reported at around 1 million HBO buys but also did a further 1 million in the UK. Likewise Hatton-Mayweather did about 1 million too and again another 1.3 million from the UK. For some reason boxing doesn’t report it’s full international numbers all the time.
I can’t remember the exact numbers for the PPV buys so I’m just guesstimating above.