The Royal Rumble Premium Live Event was the first pay-per-view under the direction of Triple H, who took on the role of head of WWE Creative last year. Clearly, the results speak for themselves.
The event saw Cody Rhodes winning the Men’s Royal Rumble match while Rhea Ripley won from the women’s side. Roman Reigns also retained his titles against Kevin Owens and the subsequent betrayal at the hands of Sami Zayn became the biggest talking point in WWE.
As revealed by a statement released by WWE, it was announced that WWE smashed all-time records for Gate as well as viewership.
STAMFORD, Conn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– WWE (NYSE: WWE) today announced that the 2023 Royal Rumble, which emanated from the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, became WWE’s highest-grossing and most-viewed Royal Rumble in company history.
The event set a new all-time gate record at more than $7.7 million, far surpassing the previous Royal Rumble high in 2017 by more than 50 percent. Viewership of the event saw a 52 percent increase versus the previous record set in 2022.
In addition, the 2023 Royal Rumble broke all-time venue merchandise and sponsorship records. Merchandise sales were up 135 percent versus the record set in 2022. Royal Rumble sponsorship revenue was up nearly 200 percent versus 2022 and featured the first-ever sponsored match (MTN DEW PITCH BLACK) and sponsored countdown clock (Applebee’s).
On social, the Roman Reigns-Sami Zayn videos generated 20 million-plus views across all WWE platforms and became the most-viewed WWE clip of 2023. Additional highlights include Logan Paul and Ricochet’s high-flying collision which amassed 26.5 million views across WWE and Paul’s platforms, and the launch of Reigns’ TikTok account which netted 100K followers in the first 24 hours.
WWE Statement
We will have to wait and see whether WrestleMania 39 will end up breaking more records than the Royal Rumble. After all, the road to WrestleMania has officially begun.
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