WWE WrestleMania 30 Sets ‘Record’ For Domestic PPV Purchases

WWE reported Tuesday that WrestleMania 30 "reached a record 1 million households in the U.S. alone on WWE Network and pay-per-view combined, the first time WrestleMania has eclipsed this mark domestically." This is what Variety called "a clever crunching of the numbers," taking the 667,000 WWE Network subscribers and adding them to the "nearly 400,000" domestic PPV purchases. This can be looked at a couple different ways. WrestleMania 29 topped out around 1.1 million buys (662,000 domestic), while WrestleMania 28 clocked in at 1.25 million, with 733,000 being domestic buys. So the current figure of 1.067 million is slightly down from previous years, but only domestic figures are available. Looking at the number of domestic buys, the numbers are considerably down. However, WM 28 did 520,000 international PPV buys, while last year's 'Mania had 442,000 international purchases. If the last two Manias are an indication, about 40% of the overall PPV buys are international, which could mean there are another 350,000 to 450,000 purchases to add on before all is said and done. If it's closer to recent years, it could mean that WrestleMania 30 had more than 800,000 traditional PPV buys, in addition to the 667,000 WWE Network subscribers. On the other hand, if WWE's "nearly 400,000" figure is accurate, it means the company sold more than 250,000 fewer domestic PPVs at $70 a pop €“ and if revenues are equally split, that means $8.75 million less for WWE than WM 29. Even if every dollar of the 667,000 $10 subscriptions for April went toward closing that potential gap, it's still $2 million less than last year. Of course, this is a preliminary reading of the tea leaves without all the information present. There's definitely reason for concern, but it will be interesting to see how the numbers shake out as more detailed information becomes available. WWE has to be playing the long game with this venture, because every bump in the road can scare you off.