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WrestleMania has a rich history ever since the 1980s. The high-grossing history of this international event indeed gives a taste of its popularity.
The first WrestleMania was organized in 1985 by Vince McMahon and is often considered the longest-lasting event in sports history. This year's WrestleMania is predicted to be conducted in April and is produced by a publicly-traded company called WWE. WWE or World Wrestling Entertainment is an integrated media company that is leading in global entertainment presently.
WWE delivers about 52 weeks of global entertainment content to viewers in a year. It has a very prestigious position in the world of sports and attracts millions of fans every year. WrestleMania's delivery is on a pay-per-view basis, but besides that, WWE also delivers family-friendly entertainment content on television, publishing platforms, and digital media. With a broad reach of more than 65 million homes worldwide in about 25 languages, WWE has a significant role in popularizing WrestleMania and creating a rich history of this annual wrestling event.
Presently WrestleMania has created massive hype for WWE and is one of the most popular events. According to Forbes' list of the most valuable sports brands, WrestleMania has been listed as the 8th most valuable WWE event.
Particular annual WrestleMania events have exceptionally contributed to its high-grossing history.
WrestleMania 28 and WrestleMania 30
WrestleMania 28 was held in Miami, Florida, in the year 2012. It had a wide audience of about 78,363 and became one of the biggest highlights for WWE. The pay-per-view buys were insane, around 1.21 million, and the gross income reached up to $8.9 million. This was partly because the main event was a match between John Cena and the Rock. The great PPV sets the record for upcoming wrestling events, and the dream match between John Cena and the Rock set lofty expectations for the future.
WrestleMania 30 was held in 2014 at Mercedes-Benz Superdome, New Orleans, Los Angeles. With an audience of About 75167, It had an impressive gross income of about $10.9 million. The main event was amongst Daniel Bryan, Dave Batista, and Randy Orton.
WrestleMania 32 and WrestleMania 33
WrestleMania 32 was held in the year 2016 at AT&T Stadium, Arlington in Texas, US. The main event was the primary attraction with 101,763 fans and collected a splendid 17.3 million in PPV sales. It has made history as one of the top ten WrestleMania events.
WrestleMania 33 was held the very next year in 2017, and it is known for its higher gross income of a sumptuous $14.5 million. The location for this wrestling event was Orlando in Florida, and the number of attendees were about 74,635. The main attraction of WrestleMania 33 was the match between Undertaker and Roman Reigns.
WrestleMania 35
WrestleMania 35 was held in the year 2019 at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., and is considered to be the second highest-grossing WrestleMania event. With roughly 82265 viewers, the sales' gross income also surpassed the previous record of 2013's WrestleMania 29.
2013's revenues were around $12.3 million, whereas WrestleMania 35 earned about $16.9 million, it was right behind the record of 2016's WrestleMania 32 in terms of audience. WrestleMania 32 had about 102000 attendees, while WrestleMania 35 had an impressive 82265 attendees from about 68 countries and 50 states worldwide.
WrestleMania 37
The upcoming WWE WrestleMania event is WrestleMania 37, scheduled to be held in April 2021. The 37th annual event is creating massive hype amongst fans and is supposed to be held on the 10th and 11th of April at the well-known Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida.
The pandemic has created a lot of hurdles in the scheduling of sports events worldwide. This was one reason why the annual wrestling event by WWE in 2021 got postponed from March to April. The venue also shifted from California to Florida because California is considerably affected. Fans are nonetheless excited to attend the upcoming WrestleMania 37. WWE is reported to be expecting about 30000 attendees for each night.
This year's wrestling events are themed based on particular storylines featuring heroes, villains, and nonimportant side characters. This style is adopted to create more tension and thrill amongst fans as they take stands and support contenders.
COVID-19 has greatly affected all sports events, especially in 2020. WWE even had to temporarily cancel its arena shows scheduled to be held from March to April. It was a bad phase for sports enthusiasts. However, WWE is once again back with all the glam to uphold the high-grossing history of WrestleMania.
Source - Yahoo! Finance, TheSportster, Wrestling Inc, Miami Herald, Sporting News, APNews