WWE Set Records For Gate And Viewership At Royal Rumble 2023
The 2023 edition of WWE’s Royal Rumble was a massive success for the company thanks to a record-setting gate and viewership numbers.
This year’s Royal Rumble took place at the Alamodome in San Antonio with Cody Rhodes and Rhea Ripley winning the Men’s and Women’s Royal Rumble matches. The show also saw Bianca Belair beat Alexa Bliss to retain the Raw Women’s Title while Bray Wyatt beat LA Knight in the first-ever Pitch Black Match.
As for the dramatic main event, Roman Reigns beat Kevin Owens to retain the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship in a match that Owens had won at one point, but there was no referee present to count the pin. Reigns recovered and found a way to win.
After the match, Reigns ordered The Bloodline (Jimmy Uso, Jey Uso & Solo Sikoa) to beat up Owens some more, which led to Owens getting handcuffed to the ropes while nobody helped him. That is until Sami Zayn refused to hit his best friend Owens, which led to Zayn hitting Reigns in the back with a steel chair.
Sami Zayn’s actions led to him getting beat up by Jimmy, Solo and Roman, but Jey walked out on his own rather than take part in the attack on his friend Sami.
The compelling storyline involving The Bloodline, Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens has captivated WWE fans, which has led to strong attendance figures across the board and it was the most watched Royal Rumble in company history. The official WWE press release is below.
WWE Smashes All-Time Gate & Viewership Records at Royal Rumble
STAMFORD, Conn.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–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.