And as a result of the strong indication, we're going to -- we're going to raise our guidance, our 2021 guidance.
Normally we have 2.
We are as bullish now on those rights as we were when we went into the prior negotiations, which saw an increase in the U.S. from 130 million a year AAV to 470 million a year AAV for Raw and SmackDown.
As an example, we know the English Premier League is looking to get $300 million a year annually versus U.S. rights, doubling the $150 million a year average annual value currently paid by NBCU.
Yesterday, Fox announced on its earnings call that they closed a multiyear deal with UEFA for its next two European Championships in 2024 and 2028 and for over 1,500 soccer matches, a rights package in excess of which Disney currently pays for its portion of it.
The partnership jump starts us in this all-important space while allowing us to leverage the resources and reach of Spotify and its 165 million subscribers.
In 2016 at AT&T Stadium, we had over 100,000 fans in attendance for WrestleMania.
Over 400,000 people are expected to travel to Las Vegas that weekend to celebrate the Fourth.
What we found from this past SummerSlam in Las Vegas, of the 50,000 plus who attended, not one ticket was purchased from Tennessee, not 1.
That is no longer happening on Saturdays late in the season with the NFL's new 18-week regular season, and over 350,000 people are expected in Atlanta for that New year's weekend.
He did make it to the top 10, and his weekly appearance was seen by nearly six million viewers on ABC, raising awareness for both Miz and WWE.
For example, SummerSlam was held at Allegiant Stadium, the first time SummerSlam has ever been held in an NFL stadium, attracting a record 51,000 fans and drawing a record gate.
As Nick mentioned, more than 4 times greater than the last SummerSlam held with fans in 2019.
Merchandise was up 155% year-over-year and more people watched SummerSlam across Peacock and WWE networks than any other SummerSlam in WWE history, with a viewership increase of 55% from 2020.
John Cena became our top-selling talent for merchandise, especially with youth audiences, and he increased ratings for audiences two to 17 and 18 to 49 by 20% and 10% during his appearances on Raw and SmackDown.
An Instagram video featuring Cena became WWE's most watched native Instagram video with 4.3 million views.
Brock's return broke Cena's Instagram record at 4.5 million.
Sales and sponsorship revenues for SummerSlam were up 18% year-over-year and 25% over 2019, featuring our first-ever official water with Blue Triton's Pure Life and our first-ever official beer with Constellation's Victoria beer brand.
Just as WWE's overall business is nearly 80% contractual, we have shifted our sales and sponsorship strategy from transactional to contractual, pivoting to multiyear seven-figure deals.
In 2021, the number of these deals has increased 60%.
Additionally, our client spend has increased 44% year-over-year with over 50% returning partners.
In the quarter, gross sponsorship sales are up over 20%, excluding a 2020 YouTube bonus payment and partnership allocation.
We produced 16 pieces of original content that delivered over 0.5 billion impressions and 40 million views with 96% of our audience saying they would take action toward Old Spice.
Digital consumption increased to a quarterly record of 410 million hours, and video views increased 38% to 12.8 billion as compared to a prior year period that had benefited from COVID-19-related viewing trends.
And with our renewed emphasis on producing more content for emerging platforms and younger audiences, our video views on Snapchat and TikTok are up 22% and 29%, respectively, year-over-year.
Speaking of TikTok, while it is a tight race, we are the number one sports brand on TikTok over the NBA with 14.5 million followers.
And I would be remiss if I didn't recognize how excited we are for the launch of our console game 2K 22 in March 2022.
Total WWE revenue was $255.8 million, an increase of 15%, driven by higher ticket and vending merchandise sales associated with our return to live event touring, including SummerSlam.
Adjusted OIBDA declined 8% to $77.9 million as the growth in revenue was more than offset by higher television and event-related production expenses.
Adjusted OIBDA was $85.6 million, a decline of 16%, primarily due to the increase in production expenses, which I just described.
Live Events adjusted OIBDA was $9.3 million, an increase of more than 3 times or $13.5 million due to a 39 times increase in revenue with the return to live event touring, including the staging of SummerSlam.
During the third quarter, average attendance for our 38 events in North America was significantly above 2019, reflecting heightened consumer demand for our live events.
During the third quarter, WWE generated approximately $45 million in free cash flow, declining $66 million primarily due to the timing of collections associated with our large-scale international events in the prior year quarter and to a lesser extent, an increase in capital expenditures.
Notably, during the third quarter, WWE returned $31 million of capital to shareholders, including approximately $22 million in share repurchases and $9 million in dividends paid.
To date, we've repurchased approximately $200 million of stock, representing approximately 40% of the authorization under our $500 million repurchase program.
As of September 30, 2021, WWE held approximately $449 million in cash and short-term investments.
Debt totaled $221 million, including $200 million associated with WWE's convertible notes.
The company has no amounts outstanding under its revolving line of credit and estimates related debt capacity of approximately $200 million.
In January, WWE issued adjusted OIBDA guidance of $270 million to $305 million for the full year 2021.
Adjusted OIBDA is now expected to be within a range of $305 million to $315 million with the staging of one large-scale international event.
The revised full year guidance implies fourth quarter adjusted OIBDA of $75 million to $85 million as compared to $51.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Through the first nine months of 2021, WWE has incurred about $24 million in capital expenditures, primarily to support our technology infrastructure and restart the construction of our new headquarters.
For the full year 2021, total capital expenditures are expected to be within a range of $60 million to $75 million, lower than the previous guidance of $85 million to $105 million.

Summary:
And as a result of the strong indication, we're going to -- we're going to raise our guidance, our 2021 guidance.
Total WWE revenue was $255.8 million, an increase of 15%, driven by higher ticket and vending merchandise sales associated with our return to live event touring, including SummerSlam.
Adjusted OIBDA is now expected to be within a range of $305 million to $315 million with the staging of one large-scale international event.
For the full year 2021, total capital expenditures are expected to be within a range of $60 million to $75 million, lower than the previous guidance of $85 million to $105 million.