The Greatest Royal Rumble event in Saudi Arabia a few months ago brought plenty of controversy along with it. Regardless of what you thought of the event, I think we all assumed that WWE was paid a boatload of money to put it on.
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It looks like all of our assumptions are accurate after WWE released their earnings report for quarter 2 of 2018.
Many people have noticed that WWE’s revenue for their ‘other’ section went up a major amount. Specifically, the ‘other’ section had WWE earning $11.9 million in 2017. In 2018, that number skyrocketed to $60.6 million.
WWE said that they couldn’t reveal the exact amount due to “confidentially clauses”. The speculation (via Pro Wrestling Sheet) is that WWE was likely paid $40 million or more to put on the Greatest Royal Rumble event.
For a comparison, the press release says that Wrestlemania 34 grossed the company $14.1 million.
Moral of the story, WWE is probably going to go back to Saudi Arabia if they are bringing in money like that for a single event.
On a related note, the contracts of a handful of WWE Superstars are expiring soon. You can read more about that here.