Haus of Wrestling was just sent the following press release by WWE touting the success of Money In The Bank from London at The O2 arena.
MONEY IN THE BANK® SETS RECORD FOR HIGHEST-GROSSING ARENA EVENT IN WWE HISTORY
Friday Night SmackDown at The O2 Becomes Highest-Grossing SmackDown
STAMFORD, Conn., July 5, 2023 – WWE® (NYSE: WWE) today announced that Money In The Bank, which emanated from The O2 in London on Saturday, became the most successful and highest-grossing Money In The Bank of all time. Notably, Money In The Bank set a new record for highest-grossing arena event in WWE history, and Friday Night SmackDown from The O2 became the highest-grossing SmackDown of all time. The weekend generated a combined gate of more than $5.4 million.
Money In The Bank (MITB) also set new records for viewership, sponsorship, merchandise and social media:
- Viewership jumped 17 percent from last year’s record, and surpassed the last U.K. premium live event – Clash at the Castle – by 30 percent.
- Sponsorship revenue was up nine percent versus the record set in 2022.
- MITB marked the highest-grossing arena event for venue merchandise in WWE history.
- MITB set a new record for On Location fan experience packages, becoming the highest-grossing non-WrestleMania event ever.
- The event became the most social Money In The Bank of all-time, with video views of the Bloodline Civil War match reaching 40 million in the first 48 hours –a 4X jump from the top clip at Night of Champions, Jimmy Uso super-kicking Roman Reigns.
Additionally, Friday’s episode of SmackDown on Fox drew 2.51 million total viewers, up 17 percent versus a year ago, and was No. 1 in the 18-49 demographic with a .7 rating and 897K total viewers, up 39 percent versus a year ago.
I was in London as approved press for WWE Money In The Bank this past weekend, participating in the media junket on Friday before Smackdown, as well as the press conference following the premium live event. Haus of Wrestling will be releasing exclusives coming out of interviews I conducted in the coming weeks.
I was joined by Inside The Ropes‘ Kenny McIntosh yesterday, who was also on-site as approved media for the weekend. We discussed our experience covering the big event up close on the latest Haus of Wrestling episode, which can be found courtesy of the embedded audio player below.