The Las Vegas Stadium Authority released information ahead of its quarterly meeting this week, providing another measure of attendance for this year’s WrestleMania. WWE’s two-day event took place in Las Vegas at Allegiant Stadium for the second consecutive year, providing a straightforward year-over-year comparison. The stadium’s numbers are consistent with the year-over-year declines in the data estimated by WrestleTix as well as the numbers announced on the broadcast by WWE. Three measures now show attendance was down between 15% and 18% from the prior year.
The Stadium Authority reported WrestleMania 42 on Saturday, April 18, drew 47,093 fans and on Sunday, April 19 drew 50,033, for a total of 97,126 attendees. That’s down from last year’s numbers from the authority, which were 58,538 for Saturday and 60,103 for Sunday: a total of 118,641. Those 2025 WrestleMania events stand as the biggest two gates in all of pro wrestling history, even when adjusting for inflation, generating ticket sales totaling $66 million, or roughly $33 million for each event.
This year’s WrestleMania was still among the biggest gates in WWE’s history, according to executive comments on TKO’s earnings call last week. Ticket sales revenue for that 2026 event isn’t known, but WWE’s live events segment was down $33.7 million from the previous year’s WrestleMania quarter, a difference TKO attributed “almost exclusively related to WrestleMania 42 in Las Vegas.”
The stadium authority is a government-created entity responsible for Allegiant Stadium, home of the Las Vegas Raiders. The agency also provides the public with details on how well stadium events are attracting visitors from out of town, as tourism and hotels are a major part of the local economy in Las Vegas. The report says 81% of this year’s WrestleMania attendees were from out of town. And 96% and 97%, on Saturday and Sunday, respectively, said WrestleMania was their main reason for traveling to the city. Those numbers are comparable with recent concerts at the stadium: multi-night concerts from BTS, Bruno Mars, and Morgan Wallen.
Bringing WrestleMania back to Las Vegas for the second year in a row was attractive enough to the city that the local tourism agency, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, paid WWE a $6 million fee to be the host city of WrestleMania, better than the $5 million the same organization paid in 2025. In addition to the site fee, Nevada also offers an attractive film tax credit program that WWE has benefited from, getting an estimated $4.2 million and $4.3 million in 2025 and 2026. The incentives in Vegas were so good that WWE went back on its earlier announcement that WrestleMania in 2026 would happen in New Orleans.
The decrease in WrestleMania attendance this year also tracks with trends in Las Vegas more generally. Tourism in the city is down overall. In WrestleMania’s month of April 2026, the Stadium Authority reports $5,313,933 in hotel room tax revenue, which is lower than April 2025’s $5,617,812.
WWE President Nick Khan addressed the decline in WrestleMania attendance at an internal TKO staff call on April 27, in comments previously reported on by POST Wrestling. Khan said running WrestleMania in his hometown for second year in a row was his call.
“That was ultimately my decision,” Khan told staff. “Maybe we don’t do that one again in terms of back-to-back, but ultimately it ended up being a successful event.”
WrestleTix analyzes ticketing maps to estimate the number of tickets sold or given away for events and published final estimates of 50,081 and 52,011 (a total of 102,092) for this year’s event. It’s important to point out that we don’t know what type of attendance the stadium authority is reporting — whether that’s tickets actually sold, tickets distributed, or tickets used. The authority’s WrestleMania attendance numbers for 2025 (totaling 118,641) were higher than the number of tickets sold reported by Pollstar (113,412), which seems to rule out the notion that the authority is reporting the number of tickets sold.
WWE itself had John Cena this year read the WrestleMania attendance on air, announcing 50,816 for Saturday and 55,255 for Sunday, totaling 106,071. Those numbers are down 15% from what WWE announced in 2025. WWE’s self-assessment is the mildest decline of the three sources, but not far off from the rest. The WrestleTix estimates for WrestleMania were down 16% between 2025 and 2026. And the Stadium Authority’s figures are down 18%.
WWE doesn’t detail how they come up with their attendance announcements. However, the company does seem to be more honest with its attendance announcements in the years since WrestleTix started tracking events. Whereas in prior years, WWE could be found adding “anyone with a heartbeat,” including venue staff, into its on-air attendance formulas.
