Over the last 12 months, WWE has been creating new records in terms of revenue. In fact, this year’s Royal Rumble pay-per-view broke the company’s all-time gate record, earning over $7.7 million. The historic event featured two rumble matches, a RAW women’s title match, and the Undisputed Championship match between Roman Reigns and Kevin Owens. Royal Rumble 2023 also saw Bray Wyatt wrestling in his first match since returning to the company. The Eater of Worlds squared off against LA Knight in a Pitch Black Match.
Unlike other matches on the card, Bray Wyatt versus LA Knight had a rather different theme. It had a sponsor and was advertised as Mountain Dew Pitch Black Match. The creative team had added a neon element to the match that lasted for less than 10 minutes. Although the match received heavy criticism from fans, it turned out to be a financial success for WWE.
WWE made around $1 million for the Pitch Black Match between Bray Wyatt and LA Knight
Dave Meltzer, in the recent Wrestling Observer Newsletter, discussed the Pitch Black Match and revealed the insane numbers WWE earned from it. According to him, WWE and Mountain Dew made a “million-dollar deal” for the match.
Meltzer further noted that the Bray Wyatt-LA Knight match was “crappy” and WWE did well by keeping it short. He took shorts at Pepsi, saying they should rethink whether it’s worth spending such an amount on a crappy match. He stated:
“Mountain Dew one[Pitch Black Match], that was a million-dollar deal… It was a really crappy match though and they kept it short. I guess Pepsi has to decide whether it’s worth it to spend a million dollars to sponsor a crappy match, maybe it is…”
WWE might be adding a sponsored match to this year’s WrestleMania match card as well
It seems WWE is going to use this new strategy of earning through sponsorship more regularly now. Just like Royal Rumble 2023, the company is looking to feature a sponsored match at this year’s WrestleMania. The news came after a discussion between The Hollywood Reporter and WWE’s Senior VP and Head of Global Sales and Partnerships Craig Stimmel. Though nothing was disclosed about which match that could be. But the reports say it could be a Cinnamon Toast Crunch match.
Nevertheless, adding a sponsored match isn’t something new or bad practice. This had been done in the field of sports entertainment for years. The only thing WWE needs to keep in mind is that it should not decrease the quality of the match. Now that they know money can be made, the next step should be to improve the match quality-wise.
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