WWE Announces Higher WrestleMania 30 Buyrate

WWE has updated the buyrate of WrestleMania 30, with the corporate website listing a buyrate of 690,000 for April's spectacular pay per view. That's a substantially higher number than the original 400,000 domestic buys reported, so perhaps the latest number is a reflection of international buyers. The buyrate number is in addition to the 667,000 Network subscribers who presumably used their subscription to watch WrestleMania 30 live on the Network. The PPV number with the Network number gives Mania 30 a combined viewership of 1,357,000 which would top WrestleMania 28's 1,217,000 pay per view record. However, this isn't the glorious success it appears to be. The Wrestling Observer believes many fans 'doubled up' on the night of Mania, ordering the pay per view despite already having the Network. This was due to widespread concerns that the internet stream would not be able to handle the broadcast. Now that those fears have proved unfounded, the amount of future double orders are expected to plunge. The post-Mania pay per views are expected to suffer in terms of their buyrate. Lowering PPV buyrates isn't really too big a worry for WWE, they in fact counted on it, the problem is that they also counted on far more Network subscriptions to counter balance PPV losses. The company must hit a million subscribers by the end of the 2014 to steady their brave new step into a digital platform. Right now they are only on around 667,000 subscribers, and the big lure of WrestleMania is gone. They have a fundamental problem with the Network selling points, if you didn't buy it for WrestleMania 30, why would you buy it for any other show this year?
WWE Writer

Grahame Herbert hasn't written a bio just yet, but if they had... it would appear here.