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It appears WWE got a subsidy for Clash at the Castle in Cardiff last year worth somewhere in the neighborhood of £2.2 million ($2.8 million USD).
A press release from April on the Welsh Government’s website reporting on the economic impact of the event states, “WWE’s ‘Clash at the Castle’ event in Cardiff in 2022 delivered a massive 10:1 return on investment by channelling £21.8 million back into the Welsh economy,” implying the cost paid by the government was one-tenth of that, which would be £2.18 million.
It’s possible there’s some rounding involved in that statement. That value exchanges to just short of $3 million.
In October last year, the Welsh government declined to answer how much it paid WWE to bring Clash at the Castle to Cardiff on September 3, 2022.
To compare, WWE got $1.5 million in cash and an additional $300,000 value from the local government in Puerto Rico for running Backlash in San Juan in May, as well as Smackdown the night prior.
The City of San Antonio won a competitive bidding process to have Royal Rumble at the Alamodome in January, also, but the city received approval from the Texas Attorney General to withhold information related to the bidding process which was part of a public records request we made earlier this year. San Antonio was allowed the exemption based on the notion the city may again compete with other municipalities for WWE events and disclosing the bidding information could make coming up with a winning bid more difficult.
WWE also collected millions of dollars in ticket and merchandise sales for these events, in addition to government incentives.
Clash at the Castle drew a live gate of $8 million for WWE, according to company filings.
It’s likely Wrestlemania for years has been won by the cities that host it. The government in Saudi Arabia pays about $50 million for each PLE WWE brings to the country, twice a year.
WWE CEO Nick Khan said at a conference in May that it’s the company’s goal to eventually get a government subsidy for each PLE throughout the year.
Brandon Thurston
Brandon Thurston has written about wrestling business since 2015. He operates and owns Wrestlenomics.