All Elite Wrestling’s “Revolution” event on Sunday, March 7, set a new pay-per-view record for the company, based on early estimates. The event likely attracted about 125,000 buys worldwide, across both digital and traditional platforms.
The event, headlined by an exploding barbed wire deathmatch between Jon Moxley and AEW champion Kenny Omega and closed by a disappointing “time bomb” explosion, generated just over $5 million. The vast majority of that revenue was from pay-per-view sales of the broadcast, but ticket and merchandise sales also contributed.
After splitting revenues with various pay-per-view distributors, AEW will net more than $2 million in revenue.
The event, which probably required under $1 million to produce, was likely quite profitable.
Retail price for the PPV was $50 in the U.S. and most of Canada, where sales for this event likely doubled compared to other recent shows. As always, the price was lower in international markets, which mostly sell the PPV at $20 USD. Proceeds from PPV sales are split with distributors, who keep the narrow majority of the revenue. The standard split domestically is 45% to the content provider. Splits in international markets are slightly less favorable, generally.
AEW admitted about 1,150 paid attendees at Daily’s Place in Jacksonville, Florida, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. An estimated average ticket price of $65 was used in this estimate based on the advertised ticket price range of $40 to $90.
Merchandise sales per paid attendee performed better than the usual $15, I was told. A rate of $18 in merchandise per paid ticket was used in the table above to come to a venue merchandise estimate of nearly $22,000.
The header image for this article is courtesy of All Elite Wrestling.
Brandon Thurston has written about wrestling business since 2015. He’s also worked as an independent wrestler and trainer. For more, see our About page.
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