Buyrate for “Royal Rumble,” “Fastlane,” and WrestleMania 31 Revealed

On Thursday, April 30, WWE revealed its first-quarter earnings for 2015. It was a historic day for WWE, as it announced that it had its highest-grossing quarter in company history. Additionally, the WWE Network, which may see a pay increase, was announced to have 1.3 million subscribers, almost doubled the amount it contained last year in late April.

The earnings report also contained pay-per-view buyrate information for WWE’s first three marquee events in 2015: “Royal Rumble,” “Fastlane,” and WrestleMania 31.

The 2015 edition of the “Royal Rumble” event, which emanated from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, obtained 145,000 buys in total. This number is down substantially from last year’s figure of 467,000. Though, of course, the WWE Network was not available at that time.

Similarly, the inaugural “Fastlane”event  drew just 46,000 buys, significantly down from the 2014 “Elimination Chamber” buyrate of 183,000. The 2014 February pay-per-view was the last one not televised on the WWE Network.

Finally, WrestleMania 31 obtained 259,000 total pay-per-view buys. Compared to last year, the figure is noticeably down, as WrestleMania XXX garnered 690,000 buys. Back then, the WWE Network was just a month old, and had not yet gone global. In total, 1.326 million people tuned into WrestleMania 31, up from last year’s mark of 1.185 million.

In total, these three pay-per-view events obtained $9 million in revenue just on pay-per-view buys alone.

Editor’s Note

Overall, these are strong numbers for WWE. I can’t fathom how almost 150,000 people paid $60 for the “Royal Rumble.”