WWE Claims WrestleMania 38 Was Most Successful Ever - But There's A Catch

WWE has published an article on its corporate website touting WrestleMania 38's colossal success, calling it the "highest-grossing and most-attended event in company history."

The write-up, which describes the two-night as if it were a one-night show, claims that a total of 156,352 fans were in attendance at AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas. Per WWE, this breaks the previous attendance and live gate records set by WrestleMania 32 in 2016.

This is bending the truth somewhat.

Inflating attendances is common practice in professional wrestling, with WrestleMania (as the sport's biggest annual event) often receiving the grandest boosts. Per WrestleTix, the foremost independent aggregator of wrestling ticket sales in North America, WrestleMania 38 actually drew 65,719 fans for its first night (Saturday 2 April) and 65,653 for its second (Sunday 3 April), hitting a total of 131,372 fans. Still a great number, but 24,980 short of WWE's announced total.

At least 11,000 of this number would have been comped, as reported by Dave Meltzer in the latest Figure Four Online/Wrestling Observer Daily Update.

WWE's announced attendance for WrestleMania 32 was 101,763, though the actual paid number was likely closer to 80,000. Had WM 38 been a one-night event, it would have broken this record, but despite WWE's apparent conflation, it wasn't. Hence, the company's release touting it as the "most-attended show ever" is pure marketing.