News on Low Attendance and Ticket Sales Stalling for WWE Backlash

We noted during WWE Backlash on Sunday night how there was no attendance announcement made at the start of the pay-per-view broadcast. WWE also did not announce attendance for Saturday’s WWE NXT “Takeover: Chicago” event, which took place from the same venue as Backlash – the Allstate Arena in Rosemont, IL.

While there was a majority of the upper deck tarped off for Takeover, Backlash had very few empty seats but was not sold out. Dave Meltzer noted on Wrestling Observer Radio that the Allstate Arena was almost sold out but ticket sales stalled completely when they started announcing the matches for the card.

WWE reportedly had around 9,500 Backlash tickets sold before they started announcing matches and ended up with around 9,800 – 10,000 tickets sold. It was believed by some that a sell out for Backlash was a given but that was not the case.

The Allstate Arena can usually hold more than 18,000 fans for a pro wrestling event. A September 2016 RAW live event drew 9,500 fans while a March 2016 RAW episode drew 10,800 fans. The 2014 Payback pay-per-view had an announced attendance of 13,311 fans while the 2015 Extreme Rules pay-per-view had an announced attendance of 14,197 and the 2016 Payback pay-per-view had an announced attendance of 13,250.

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