WrestleMania 29 Buyrate

[Troy]

WWE released their latest Key Performance Indicators yesterday and it included the buyrate for WrestleMania 29. As of April 30, the show has done 1,048,000 buys. While that is a great number it is also well down from what the show sold the last two years

No way that 1 million buys can be considered a disappointment, even if it was a decrease on what they had done recently, especially since WWE increased prices again this year. $5 more in the US would have turned off some people from purchasing it but it will also offset the 200k people that didn't purchase it this year. Plus add to the fact that it was WWE's highest grossing live event in history with them grossing $72 million on the day. Smaller number than they would have expected but still a massive number.

The buyrate was no doubt hurt by the fact that the build was weak for the main matches compounded by the fact that more than half of those in the top matches were part timers and weren't on every RAW leading up to it.


On a different note this Key Performance Indicators link on the WWE corporate website is a gold mine for someone like myself that likes stats.

 

[Deezy]

Too much Rock IMO, diluted the need to watch Mania. Watch as the other previous PPV did lesser buys than Rumble.

 

[Troy]

Was less of a special attraction but that was presumably why they had Lesnar back and the annual Undertaker appearance to try to help counter that. Hopefully for next year they go all out and actually build up some must see matches featuring purely fulltimers to go along with the appearances from the part timers.

 

[Whitewizardg]

Part timers are what people want to see, I went to WM live and everyone was talking about HHH/Taker/Rock and not about Del Rio or Orton.

 

[Dod Draper]

I didn't like the card because of the rematches, and the predictability of the show's strongest matches; Cena was always going to settle the score and get the strap off Rock heading out of Mania season, Triple H wasn't going to drop a second match against Lesnar and retire, and CM Punk was never going to end Undertaker's streak. Would this have had much of an effect? Probably not, but I definitely think it had something of an effect.

 

[Tapout]

Could also be that they jacked the prices up this year too. 15 dollars more plus a predictable card with a rematch no one wanted to see and full of partimers? Who really thought this was going to sale?

 

[Gimmick]

They should be very happy with that buyrate considering how poor the build up was. I wouldn't so much blame it on the amount of part timers but rather how predicable the whole card was.

Also, I'm sure the price increase didn't help either.

 

[Dale]

Could also be that they jacked the prices up this year too. 15 dollars more plus a predictable card with a rematch no one wanted to see and full of partimers? Who really thought this was going to sale?

You make it sound as though 1.05 million buys is a failure.

 

[Tapout]

You make it sound as though 1.05 million buys is a failure.

Its not a failure but it is down a little bit from 28. 1.3 to 1.05 is noticeable difference.

 

[Defiant]

It isn't a financial failure by any means, over a million PPV orders is a lot of cheddar. But the drop from last year's results still indicates a decrease in fan interest despite WWE's attempts to make each Wrestlemania feel increasingly "bigger".

IMO it was the build-up being weaker and lazier overall. I won't point to any one matche as the sole reason for any success or failure because the card was stacked on the main event side, and I don't honestly believe that any more than a fringe amount of people would shell out money for a full show for the sake of one match unless the build-up for it was extremely good.

 

[Troy]

Its not a failure but it is down a little bit from 28. 1.3 to 1.05 is noticeable difference.

But as you said they also bumped up prices this year so revenue will end up being pretty similar to the last two years. Still they would have no doubt expected it to be slightly higher but I think that as long as they pull in more than one million buys for WM they will always be happy.