Note on Attendance, PPV Buys and More For This Year’s WWE Royal Rumble

As previously reported, WWE announced an attendance of 48,044 of this year’s Royal Rumble at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, FL. The Wrestling Observer Newsletter reports that the show was a legitimate sellout.

WrestleTix previously reported the attendance as 46,082, so the WWE’s number was fairly close to that. The WON suggests inflating numbers may have been a Vince McMahon call and possibly a thing of the past. The venue’s capacity is listed as 42,735, but WWE had a minimal stage setup. There’s no word on what the paid attendance is. No gate was provided but is estimated to be the 11th largest gate in wrestling history. This would be behind nine Wrestlemanias and AEW All In 2023.

Traditional PPV buys were down from last year, although that’s to be expected as more people sign up for Peacock. The show had around 15,500 down 14.4% from last year, but up 84.5% from Survivor Series (8,400) the same number of days out. The final Survivor Series number was 11,700. Of those who bought this show, only 31.8% bought Survivor Series, 8.1% bought AEW Worlds End and 4.6% bought TNA Hard to Kill. Of note is that more TNA fans bought Survivor Series than AEW fans, but the overall crossover is more for AEW and WWE.