Wrestlemania 27 held yesterday at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia garnered a strong 71,617 in attendance. The WWE indicated it was the highest grossing and most attended entertainment event at the Georgia Dome although there are reports that a Backstreet Boys concert in 2000 drew over 73,000.
With respect to sports events, the SEC Championship in 2008 drew over 75,000 fans in 2008 in the Georgia Dome.
According to a WWE, Inc. release the show grossed $6.6 million in gate revenue from fans from all 50 states and 30 countries.
Despite its strong showing last night, WWE stock is slightly down at the end of today’s trading.
Payout Perspective:
Will the UFC ever have an annual Wrestlemania-type event? UFC 100 was close due to the milestone of 100 UFCs. UFC 129 could have the same feel as a Wrestlemania with its Fan Expo and the anticipated huge attendance figures. There is no doubt that the UFC would love to someday draw over 70,000 fans with over $6 million in gate revenue. It would also love the mainstream corporate sponsorship the WWE receives for its event. The Rock helped this year’s event…and the Jersey Shore’s Snooki may have hurt it. Despite what you may think of the WWE, its annual showcase always does well.
Thing is, this is a once a year occurrence. Outside of this, the WWE doesn’t do remotely this business. A normal show draws a few thousand people for a couple hundred thousand dollars. The WWE will not draw over 1 million for a gate again until next years’ Wrestlemania. The UFC will likely do that at least a half dozen times in that time frame.
I doubt that will ever happen. Fighter salaries are rising and there is always fighters trying to hold out to further that increase. The higher the fighter pay the more fight cards will go the way of boxing where you pay for 1 big fight and have never heard of the rest rather than Pro Wrestling putting on a mega event. The worse part is MMA fans for the most part are to ignorant to realize this and are always siding with the fighters even when demands are ridiculous. Then they complain when the events are watered down. You cant have it both ways.
Also it is easy to run a mega event when you can script your stars to hit their peak at any time you want. WWE story lines peak at WWE. You cant do that in MMA. Sometimes the day for the mega event will come and there wont be any fights worthy of such an event. When you are following a script you can make as many stars as you want. The UFC can only do so much with match making. They only have so many stars and they cant cant load up a mega event and then have no headliner 3 months later. Much easier if your stars can perform 200+ nights a year rather than maybe 2-3 nights a year.
Also a 6 million gate sucks with 72K attendance. The UFC gate is over 10 million with 55K. The UFC did about 6 million a few years ago with 12K.
Also how does having someone from Jersey shore hurt the attendance for WWE? I have never seen the show and never plan to. But to think there si anyone out there who decided not to attend because of her is crazy. Im sure in a way she draw fans. WWE does this for a reason and that show does have its followers. As hard as it is to think someone went because of her that is likely the case.
BSmash:
I think you are right in that Snooki drew fans. There is a level of “car crash” onlooker in many of us. Don’t want to watch, but are drawn to see what is going to happen. Kind of like her show.
In my own opinion, I think there is a backlash regarding reality stars. When Snooki is announced as “wrestling” there is an “eyeroll” reflex. I think when you sit down and decide whether to purchase the PPV and look at who is going to be on it and see that Snooki will be on the card, you roll your eyes.
The UFC can’t fo a year-end ‘blockbuster’ event without severely harming the quality the cards around that event. The WWE can do it because their wrestlers perform 150-200 times per year. In the UFC, where the top guys fight two or three times per year, it just doesn’t work.
If you booked everyone on a July ‘supercard’ then every card in May, June, August, and September would suck.
Ultimate “car crash onlooker” draw: Catch Snooki and Charlie Sheen doing the nookie, both screaming “WINNING!!!!”
It would be interesting to see the UFC have a giant annual event like Wrestlemania. A card like UFC 100 or The Ultimate 2008 (UFC 92) would probably be about as good as it could get.
Snookie vs. Cyborg on the inaugural Strikeforce PPV. Make it happen Zuffa.
LOL, I did not know who Snooki was so I had to google her. I’m more interested in seeing what the buy rate would be for this years Wrestlemania. From all indications the numbers from last year were not very good.
Some WWE data from 2010
# of events in North America: 253
Avg ticket price in North America: $39.46
Avg attendance per event in North America: 6,300
# of International events: 74
Avg ticket price for Intl events: $66.47
Avg attendance for Intl events: 7,800
Raw and Smackdown are taped every week on Monday and Tuesday – 52 times a years for each show, so 104 shows together. These are typically held in an NBA/NHL sized arena.
Then on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday the two traveling shows have “house” shows — often in smaller arenas in smaller towns. Also the house show generally just feature straight wrestling and don’t advance the storyline/soap opera aspect – that is reserved for the televised shows. Another factor is some of the older and most popular stars negotiate a reduced work schedule in their contract so they don’t have to work the house shows.
So you have the big Wrestlemania event each year which can fill a football/baseball stadium. Then 12 other lesser PPVs that do more like 12-15k in an NBA arena, although several only did 10k in 2010.
2010 saw a 5% decline in attendance for WWE domestically and 10% overseas. With similar declines in TV ratings. One reason was that several of the top stars either retired or were injured for most of 2010 (Shawn Michaels, Batista, Jericho, Triple H, Undertaker).
The PPV buys for WWE have declined significantly in recent years — just as the PPVs for UFC have risen, so presumably the rise of UFC has hurt WWE in the PPV area.
WWE has been forced to try and highlight newer, lesser known talent which clearly hasn’t worked as well. Presumably this is why WWE brought back The Rock and Steve Austin.
WWE’s strategy going forward seems to focus more on international growth – especially in Mexico and Latin America where there is a strong wrestling tradition.