Interestingly enough, this is still up significantly from the 76,000 buys Hell in a Cell did both domestically and internationally, and on par with some of the bigger events WWE has done this year, including Money in the Bank (120K).
Survivor Series has been losing interest consistently, dropping from just under 300,000 in 2011 to around 180,000 in late 2013. Many expected that number to be significantly lower this year, with the launch of the WWE Network and Raw ratings being some of the lowest in history over the past few months. Furthermore, November was the month the company was “giving away” the Network to all new subscribers. That means, despite the fact that you can cancel any time you want, 100,000 people still bought the traditional Survivor Series pay-per-view rather than watch it for free.
That number doesn’t include how many first-run shows were bought, and it’s possible that with the breaking news of Sting’s debut in the main event, a lot of fans bought the pay-per-view after word got around (which is plausible, as nearly a million more people tuned into Raw the next night). But again, the real point of interest here is that they could have watched the show for free, and instead at least $5 million was generated off the traditional broadcast.
