WWE announced on Monday that its subscriber count for the WWE Network hit 2.12 million the day after WrestleMania 34, a nine percent jump from where they were a year ago the day after WrestleMania 33.
“We expect to deliver record subscriber levels, revenue and Adjusted OIBDA in 2018,” WWE Co-President George Barrios said in a press release. “WWE Network’s continued growth along with our massive reach across traditional television as well as digital and social platforms, reaffirms the effectiveness of our global, multi-platform content strategy.”
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The company offered a free month with a new subscription, meaning the WrestleMania 34 broadcast from the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans on Sunday was free to anybody who signed up. The total paid subscribers number was reported at 1.81 million, which was also a nine percent from the previous year.
Along with the new numbers, WWE also touted it had broken the record for highest-grossing entertainment event at the Superdome with $14.1 million and that network subcribers watched 25.2 million hours of programming during WrestleMania week, a 12 percent increase from April 2017.
Sunday night’s WrestleMania 34 card featured a stacked 14-match event in front of a crowd of over 78,000.
Of the nine championship matches on the card, only three champions were able to successfully retain their belts — Brock Lesnar held on to his Universal Championship in a bloody encounter with Roman Reigns, WWE Champion AJ Styles defeated Shinsuke Nakamura via a Styles Clash and SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair forced the undefeated Asuka to tap out to her Figure Eight Submission.
Other noteworthy matches included The Undertaker making his return to pin John Cena in just under three minutes, Daniel Bryan returning to wrestling after a two-year retirement to help Shane McMahon defeat Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn Ronda Rousey making her WWE debut and forcing Stephanie McMahon to tap out to an armbar.
The former UFC Champion thanked the WWE fans for being so welcoming to her in an interview with ESPN on Monday morning.
“They really accepted me from day one. Hopefully, I satisfied a lot of skeptics tonight. I underestimated how kind the WWE universe would be. I thought any outsiders would be shunned. I was expecting to get shunned and to have to battle to be accepted. I worked my ass off to pay respect to what’s so important to them, and hopefully they saw that tonight. I’m just so grateful, man. I’m trying my best to deserve it,” said Rousey.
WWE put out a separate press release on Monday announcing that Lesnar had re-signed with the company as his contract was close to expiring. “The Beast” will take on Reigns in a steel cage match at the Greatest Royal Rumble event in Saudi Arabia on April 27.
