Wrestlemania 31 breaks audience, attendance, merchandise sales and social media records
Sunday’s Wrestlemania 31 was the biggest event in World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) history, the organisation announced today.
More than 1.3m people watched Seth Rollins dramatically win the WWE World Heavyweight Championship on the WWE Network online subscription service, making it the most-watched annual Wrestlemania event in the organisation’s history.
Wrestlemania, the biggest event on the wrestling calendar, attracted a record 76,976 fans to the Levi’s Stadium for this year’s event – the highest attendance the event has seen.
According to WWE, over 10 worldwide no.1 Twitter trends were inspired by Wrestlemania while WWE-related online content picked up 60m views on the day of the event.
Across the weekend, WWE also generated $3.3m (£2.23m) in merchandise revenue, topping the previous record set in 2013 of $2.7m.
Viewer figures are expected to swell even further with data from pay-per-view TV sales still to come.
Investors have doubted WWE’s decision to focus on an over-the-top subscription service which is made available to fans for $9.99 a month (or £9.99 in the UK) over more expensive pay-per-view TV packages.
Wrestlemania 28, the most-watched Wrestlemania before this year’s extravaganza, raised $67m in pay-per-view sales.
In 2014 – the first year of the WWE Network – the company fell to a net loss of $30m driven by a 62 per cent drop in pay-per-view sales in the third quarter.
WWE will hope the massive uptake for Wrestlemania will boost investor confidence. The night following Wrestlemania 31, WWE show Monday Night Raw recorded its highest audience in three years with 5.4m viewers.
