WWE’s highly-anticipated Royal Rumble event occurred on January 28th at Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, delivering unforgettable moments and intense matches. As expected, it broke records once more.
The Royal Rumble premium live event marked the first PPV under Triple H’s leadership as head of WWE Creative. The successful outcome speaks for itself.
Cody Rhodes won the Men’s Royal Rumble, Rhea Ripley won the Women’s, and Roman Reigns retained his title against Kevin Owens, but the biggest highlight was Sami Zayn’s betrayal of Reigns.
WWE broke records for gate and viewership, according to a statement released by the company.
WWE® SMASHES ALL-TIME GATE & VIEWERSHIP RECORDS AT ROYAL RUMBLE®
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.