WWE touted the success of the Backlash event in Puerto Rico with several business records set for the show.
On Monday, the company issued a press release to announce the show’s success – its first premium live event on the island since New Year’s Revolution in January 2005.
WWE noted that the event experienced a 28 percent increase in viewership over last year’s version of the show. It coincides with Peacock’s paid subscriber number growing from 13 million one year ago to 22 million for the first quarter of 2023.
WWE is listing attendance figures of 16,896 for Friday Night SmackDown and 17,944 for Backlash over the two nights at Coliseo de Puerto Rico.
Additionally, WWE announced merchandise and sponsorship records for Backlash. It was the first event under the company’s new expanded deal with Fanatics to oversee its on-site merchandise with the Backlash and L.W.O Puerto Rico shirts as the top-selling items. In last week’s Wrestlenomics merchandise sales report, the outlet reported that the top-selling items for the week on Shop WWE were the Eddy Guerrero men’s black L.W.O. shirt, a generic men’s black L.W.O. shirt, and men’s white ‘We The Ones’ shirt for The Bloodline.
They stated that sponsorship revenue for Backlash was up by 98 percent from the 2022 show through partnerships with Netflix’s FUBAR, Mike’s Harder Lemonade, and Xfinity. Two years ago, there was a major sponsorship deal involving Netflix’s ‘Army of the Dead’, which sponsored a Zombie Lumberjack Match on the show involving Damian Priest and The Miz at WrestleMania Backlash.
