Welcome to another edition of The Wrestling Post. In this edition we take a look at the post-Wrestlemania 29 numbers and problems with its live stream during the event.
Wrestlemania 29 Attendance 80K plus
According to The Wrestling Observer (subscription required), attendance at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey was announced at 80,676. The figure would place it second among Wrestlemanias only second to the famed 93,000 plus at the Pontiac Silverdome in Detroit for WMIII.
The live gate was $11.3 million which is a pro wrestling record. The gate falls short of UFC 129 ($12,075,00) in Toronto in terms of all-time MMA/Pro Wrestling gates.
No PPV buy numbers have been revealed although with the higher price ($70 for HD), its likely to break any PPV buy revenues. WWE officials had predicted the event to do 1.3M buys. One may recall that last year it was reported that Wrestlemania 28 received 1.3M PPV buys only to have it lowered twice to somewhere between 1.1-1.2M buys.
Payout Take: Its unusual to think that the PPV lasted 4 hours yet ran out of time as one match was scrapped and carried over until the next night. While the attendance figures may be augmented on behalf of the WWE, the gate numbers are a better indicator of the revenue generator by just the event. Moreover, the PPV buys will likely surpass all records for the organization as not much has been said of consumers passing on the event based on the price increase.
Digital Issues with Online PPV during WM 29
WWE.com experienced outages during its biggest event of the year. The WWE App also crashed during the event and thus foreclosed those who wanted to order through the app. Although the issues were rectified in time for the replay, the frustration of not being able to watch an event that you paid for live is an issue that organizations wanting to put on events online must handle.
Payout Take: The problems with online live streaming. Invicta fell victim to this issue when it first attempted to charge viewers on UStream. Its second time around was much better. There were also issues with at least two wrestling iPPVs during Wrestlemania weekend. Obviously while the technology is there, the issues remain which will deter consumers from attempting to use the platform. Until problems are rectified, it remains an uncertain option.
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