Many times this year, after major events WWE has announced breaking several of its own records. So what’s the benchmark WWE would need to pass to break certain records at tomorrow night’s Survivor Series at the venue formerly known as the Rosemont Horizon?

Last year’s Survivor Series in Boston is the highest gate for the annual November event that we have a record of. It drew $1,574,882, according to Pollstar, driven by 12,375 tickets sold.

Survivor Series is in the Chicago region this year. WWE’s Chicago market gate record was almost certainly set by Wrestlemania 22 on Apr. 2, 2006, when that event drew ticket sales worth $2.5 million, according to the company’s own press release at the time, which is one of the biggest non-stadium pro wrestling gates of all time.

In today’s dollars, that’s equivalent to $3.8 million.

The 2006 press release claimed an attendance of 17,155. WrestleTix’s latest estimate on Wednesday of tickets distributed edges out that number, at 17,157. WWE is using a smaller stage for both Survivor Series at the All State Arena, as well as Smackdown taking place there tonight, allowing for greater seating capacity.

Analysis

I expect WWE to claim Saturday as the highest-grossing Survivor Series of all time, which will be hard to dispute, adjusting for inflation or not.

It’s possible, even likely, WWE will break its non-inflation-adjusted record in the Chicago area for Survivor Series. The average ticket sold for Summerslam in Detroit this year was somewhere around $180 (based on assuming about 46,000 of the estimated 51,477 tickets distributed were sold to generate WWE’s announced $8.5 million gate) and Royal Rumble in San Antonio this year had an average ticket of $165. I expect Survivor Series’ average ticket price to be similar to or higher than either of those events since they were at higher-capacity stadium venues, which would put the gate at well over $2.5 million in today’s money.

Breaking the Chicago record adjusted for inflation, $3.8 million, is a higher bar to clear. After all, that was set by a Wrestlemania event. It would be extremely impressive if a Survivor Series event outperformed numbers put up by the biggest event of the year. To break the inflation-adjusted record, the average ticket sold for Survivor Series would have to be somewhere around $245 (assuming about 15,500 tickets sold out of just over 17,000 distributed), which seems too high.

Survivor Series live event business history

Here are all the attendance and live gate records we have on Survivor Series going back to the first event in 1987.

Source key

cm = cagematch.net

wd = wrestlingdata.com

thow = thehistoryofwwe.com

Many of the attendance records below may have been originally sourced from WWE’s own announcements, Wrestling Observer Newsletter, or other sources.

All gate data is sourced from Pollstar.

• 11/26/1987 – Richfield, OH
• Attendance: 21,300 (Source: cm, wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/24/1988 – Richfield, OH
• Attendance: 13,500 (Source: cm, thow, wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/23/1989 – Rosemont, IL
• Attendance: 15,504 (Source: cm, thow, wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/22/1990 – Hartford, CT
• Attendance: 16,249 (Source: wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/27/1991 – Detroit, MI
• Attendance: 17,500 (Source: cm, thow, wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/25/1992 – Richfield, OH
• Attendance: 17,500 (Source: wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/24/1993 – Boston, MA
• Attendance: 15,509 (Source: cm, thow, wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/23/1994 – San Antonio, TX
• Attendance: 10,000 (Source: cm, thow, wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/19/1995 – Landover, MD
• Attendance: 14,500 (Source: cm, thow)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/17/1996 – New York City, NY
• Attendance: 18,647 (Source: cm, thow, wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/9/1997 – Montreal, Quebec
• Attendance: 20,593 (Source: cm, wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/15/1998 – St. Louis, MO
• Attendance: 19,322 (Source: cm, thow)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/14/1999 – Detroit, MI
• Attendance: 18,735 (Source: cm, thow, wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/18/2001 – Greensboro, NC
• Attendance: 10,142 (Source: cm, wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/17/2002 – New York City, NY
• Attendance: 17,930 (Source: cm, wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/16/2003 – Dallas, TX
• Attendance: 13,487 (Source: wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/14/2004 – Cleveland, OH
• Attendance: 7,500 (Source: cm, wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/27/2005 – Detroit, MI
• Attendance: 15,000 (Source: cm, wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/26/2006 – Philadelphia, PA
• Attendance: 17,893 (Source: wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/18/2007 – Miami, FL
• Attendance: 12,500 (Source: wd)
• Gate: 11,082 paying $774,120 (2023 USD: $1,137,956) (Source: Pollstar)

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• 11/23/2008 – Boston, MA
• Attendance: 14,500 (Source: wd)
• Gate: 12,498 paying $751,480 (2023 USD: $1,059,587) (Source: Pollstar)

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• 11/21/2010 – Miami, FL
• Attendance: 8,000 (Source: wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/20/2011 – New York City, NY
• Attendance: 16,749 (Source: cm, wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/18/2012 – Indianapolis, IN
• Attendance: 8,500 (Source: wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/24/2013 – Boston, MA
• Attendance: 15,297 (Source: cm)
• Gate: 10,753 paying $848,325 (2023 USD: $1,111,306) (Source: Pollstar)

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• 11/23/2014 – St. Louis, MO
• Attendance: 12,000 (Source: wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/22/2015 – Atlanta, GA
• Attendance: 14,481 (Source: cm, wd)
• Gate: 11,836 paying $858,831 (2023 USD: $1,099,304) (Source: Pollstar)

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• 11/20/2016 – Toronto, Ontario
• Attendance: 17,143 (Source: wd)
• Gate: 14,372 paying $1,066,776 (2023 USD: $1,354,806) (Source: Pollstar)

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• 11/19/2017 – Houston, TX
• Attendance: No data
• Gate: No data

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• 11/18/2018 – Los Angeles, CA
• Attendance: 16,320 (Source: cm, wd)
• Gate: No data

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• 11/24/2019 – Rosemont, IL
• Attendance: 11,500 (Source: wd)
• Gate: 12,767 paying $1,297,960 (2023 USD: $1,544,572) (Source: Pollstar)

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• 11/22/2020 – Orlando, FL
• Attendance: 0 (held at empty Performance Center due to pandemic)

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• 11/21/2021 – New York City, NY
• Attendance: 12,646 (Source: wd)
• Gate: 13,224 paying $1,383,085 (2023 USD: $1,549,055) (Source: Pollstar)

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• 11/26/2022 – Boston, MA
• Attendance: 15,609 (Source: cm, wd)
• Gate: 12,375 paying $1,574,882 (2023 USD: $1,637,877) (Source: Pollstar)

brandon@wrestlenomics.com

Photo credit: WWE