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WWE News: Latest Report on the Buyrate for WrestleMania 28
April 11, 2012
Early last week, ESPN’s Gus Ramsey reported that WrestleMania 28 had generated an astounding 1.9 million buys, which caused the skeptics to come out in full force.
Seriously—1.9 million buys? How the hell is that even possible?
The skepticism was certainly warranted, especially when you consider that the reported 1.9 million buys would have absolutely obliterated the previous record of 1.2 million for WrestleMania 23.
This, of course, has had wrestling fans across the world wondering what the actual WrestleMania 28 buyrate is.
We now have a better idea of just how many fans bought the highly-anticipated pay-per-view.
From F4Wonline.com (via WrestleNewz.com):
While official numbers aren’t out yet, early indications from cable companies show that WWE’s WrestleMania 28 did around 1.1 million buys. WWE originally predicted 1.3 million buys for the show but lowered their expectations to 1 million on the day of the show.
Well, that sure seems like a much more realistic number to me.
While the WWE pulled out all the stops for WrestleMania 28, there was just no way in hell that the company was ever really going to generate that many pay-per-view buys.
The absolute floor that the WWE wanted to hit for Mania was a million buys—doubling that was never more than a pipe dream.
To be honest, though, I think that 1.1 million buys is pretty disappointing, given how loaded the WrestleMania 28 card was. It featured three huge matches, including one with a big movie star (a.k.a. The Rock).
I, for one, was certain that the PPV would destroy the WWE’s previous record for pay-per-view buys. Like the WWE, I was expecting to see anywhere between 1.3 and 1.5 million buys.
I guess I was a little too optimistic, though.
Even so, at least the WWE hit that one-million threshold. At 65 bucks a pop, that’s a lot of dough that the WWE raked in for one show.
Note: As part of the new WWE blog, I'll be asking all of the B/R wrestling readers for questions for a new mailbag that I will post on Fridays. It will be a slideshow featuring 10-20 questions and answers on a wide range of topics. You can submit questions either through Formspring or Twitter, and the best ones will be answered in the B/R mailbag.