WWE Pay-Per-View Buys For The Royal Rumble, Fastlane And WrestleMania 31

[Prince Bálor]

The First Quarter 2015 financial report released by WWE today shows 259,000 pay-per-view buys for WrestleMania 31, down from 690,000 buys in 2014 for WrestleMania XXX. Both events were available on the WWE Network.

WrestleMania had 1.326 million viewers this year with Network subscribers and pay-per-view buys included. This is up from the 1.185 million reach they had in 2014.

WWE reported a total of $9 million in pay-per-view revenue for the first quarter of 2015. This includes the Royal Rumble, Fastlane and WrestleMania. Other buys include:

* The Royal Rumble was updated from 141,000 to 145,000 buys. This is down from last year's 467,000 buys but the Rumble was not available on the Network last year

* The Fastlane pay-per-view drew 46,000 buys. This is down from last year's 183,000 buys for Elimination Chamber, which also was not available on the Network

Source

 

[Wacokid27]

Good info from an insider's perspective.

It will be more interesting to see a comparison of numbers between Summerslam 2014 and 2015, etc., since, by that time, the WWEN was well-established and people likely realized it wasn't going to be XFL II. I'm glad they included the info about number of actual viewers counting PPV buys and subscribers (and showing that more people watched Wrestlemania 2015 than watched it in 2014 despite the lower buy number).

The WWEN was a revolutionary idea and, despite some hiccups and continuing detractors, is a sign of the future of entertainment.

So, overall, thanks, @Prince Bálor

wk

 

[Leo C]

In fact there's still a lot of folks who buy traditional PPV. I'm sure this will diminish over time though (assuming the Network doesn't fold or anything, which I don't think will happen).

 

[ShaRpY HaRdY]

Im still curious as to why they even have PPV like that as an option except for the big 4 rather than just straight putting full advertising into the Network, doesn't make much sense to me.

 

[Wacokid27]

Im still curious as to why they even have PPV like that as an option except for the big 4 rather than just straight putting full advertising into the Network, doesn't make much sense to me.

I know one of the reasons for continuing to have PPV's (I'm sure it's not the only reason, just the first that occurs to me) is because there are actually sports bars that show WWE events. I don't think a bar can have a WWEN subscription and show the PPV's (it's a personal/family license to view if I recall correctly). Since those bars can't use a subscription, they have to purchase PPV's through a different type of license (just as they will tomorrow for Mayweather-Pacquiao), which also allows them to charge a cover or require a minimum drink purchase to view the fight/event/what-have-you.

wk