How Much Money Did The “All In” Show Really Make?

As most in the wrestling community waits with bated breath to find out how many PPVs the Cody Rhodes/Young Bucks promoted indie supershow “All In” officially sold on Saturday, announcing legend Jim Ross was already reporting some numbers on his most recent podcast that should have fans and performers excited.

“They set record business,” said Ross, while recounting his own experience at the show on his latest The Jim Ross Report, published Wednesday.

Get all your “All In” news at Ringside Intel

Then “Good ol’ JR” hit listeners with the number a “reliable source” shared with him:

“The FITE app is saying that their PPV business was the biggest they’ve ever had, and that it very easily will exceed $1 million in sales. Now that was about a day ago. I’m recording this on Tuesday. So that was yesterday, I heard that through the grapevine, so they just did phenomenal business.”

At $40 a pop, the price of “All In,” if we just take the $1 million number, that works out to about 25,000 buys. Obviously, this sounds promising for an “indie” show, but is this possibly in-line with what Rhodes, the Bucks, and observers expected?

In July, Wrestling Observer Radio’s Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez speculated how many buys “All In” might get (courtesy of Wrestlezone):

Meltzer: I don’t know. That’s a tough one. 30,000 do you think?

Alvarez: 30,000? I think the over/under should be 10,000. Maybe 15. We’ve got 10,000 people going there so they’re not going to be buying the pay-per-view.

Meltzer: It’s a big deal. They don’t have TV pushing it; but, it’s a super big internet thing. They’ve got 10,000 people to fly. Of those 10,000 that are buying tickets probably 7200 of them are flying in. So, if you’ve got that many flying in, you should have tons more watching on pay-per-view because they don’t have to fly in. I think 30,000.

If the numbers Ross is being told hold up – over a million in sales – “All In” might easily meet or surpass the 30,000 buys Meltzer and Alvarez floated.

On Wednesday, Ross continued to describe how well “All In” did business-wise on the broadcast side, saying, “I talked to (FITE Chief Operating Officer) Mike Weber, who didn’t tell me about the million dollars, I did hear that from another reliable source.”

Ross continued, “But Mike did tell me that FITE was the top-grossing sports app of this past weekend in the land. And that means, folks, this: The FITE app for this wrestling event, orchestrated by Cody, the Young Bucks and certainly Conrad Thompson, drove more revenue than the MLB TV, ESPN, FUBOTV, UFC, and even the Fantasy Football brand.”

This is impressive by any measure.

Ross also had another interesting “All In” business tidbit. After praising rasslin’ t-shirt powerhouse “Pro Wrestling Tees and Ryan Barkan and all those great people who work there…” Ross would add:

“By the way, Pro Wrestling Tees sold about a half a million dollars worth of t-shirts over the weekend. Half a million dollars. This quote, unquote ‘indie’ wrestling show. That’s pretty damn special isn’t it?”

Pretty special indeed. And let us not forget the 11,263 people who packed the sold-out Sears Centre Arena to make history on Saturday.

Cody Rhodes, the Young Bucks, every wrestler on the card and every fan who attended the show or bought a PPV can be proud they were a part of pro wrestling history last weekend. It was a special event so many won’t soon forget.

And when the official PPV buyrate finally comes in – and Jim Ross’s numbers hopefully and predictably hold-up – let the celebration continue.