Posted in: Sports, TV, WWE | Tagged: Raw, Smackdown, SummerSlam, wrestling, wwe

SummerSlam This Year Was the Most-Watched of All Time, Says WWE

In a new press release, WWE is calling this year's SummerSlam "the most-viewed and highest-grossing SummerSlam in the company's history." Though WWE's attendance numbers aren't actually real, it's likely that their percentage gains over previous years are correct. According to WWE, this year's Summerslam was watched by 55% more people than watched SummerSlam in 2020 and 29% more than watched in 2019, before the pandemic started.

Here's some of the highlights from the press release:

• More people watched Saturday's event live across Peacock and WWE Network than any other SummerSlam in the company's history. The seven-figure global audience marked a 55% increase over 2020 and a 29% increase over 2019;
• The sell-out crowd of 51,326 broke SummerSlam records for indoor attendance and gate receipts. With tickets purchased by fans from all 50 U.S. states, Saturday's live gate was more than four times greater than the last SummerSlam held with fans in attendance in 2019;
• Merchandise sales posted an increase of 155% over 2019;
• SummerSlam set a new sponsorship record, growing by 25% vs. 2019 and 18% vs. 2020;
• With more than four million views, Brock Lesnar's return became WWE's most-watched Instagram video of all-time – surpassing the video of John Cena's return at Money In The Bank. In total, SummerSlam videos generated more than one billion views across all WWE social platforms during the week.

Unfortunately, WWE chose to use the opportunity of having so many eyes on their product to engage in some extremely questionable booking decisions, in particular bringing back Becky Lynch only to have her squash Smackdown Women's Champion Bianca Belair and win the title, damaging both women's credibility. WWE reportedly plans to follow that up by turning Lynch, the most naturally over babyface the company has seen in some time, into a heel. But at least they got a billion Instagram views.

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