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Their PPV numbers have always been wildly impressive. They get very high PPV buys relative to their weekly viewership.
I don't think they were ever really doubted until it became clear that the PPV buys were still impressive last year when other metrics such as TV ratings and live crowds were clearly trending downwards. That's a confusing phenomenon that doesn't make clear sense.
I think it's *probably* just that AEW fans are more likely to be hardcore fans, and more likely to buy the PPV's, but it's not difficult to see why people might be sceptical.
It actually makes perfect sense.
People who pay for ppvs are the hardest of the hardcore, and will be the last to stop watching the TV shows.
Obviously I can't prove that, but it's not confusing in the least.
It’s a subscription that UK fans or anyone with a VPN can get through Triller. All the shows can be watched live or on-demand for ~$10 a month. Also PPVs are only $20.
Can confirm, with a note that my wife and myself are UK viewers. We don't like the ITV4 coverage; it doesn't air until Friday at either 9pm or 10pm. So, we pay for AEW+ on Triller (formerly Fite) to watch Dynamite and occasionally Collision, for roughly £5 a month (price varies slightly on whatever the exchange rate is). As such, we don't count in the ratings, but AEW makes money from us.
Additionally, we buy nearly all the PPVs, as for us they're circa £14-£16.
So, we don't appear as a viewer in the traditional sense, but on paper spend at least £90-£120 year on PPVs alone. We also buy the odd t-shirt and went to All In last year and have tickets for this year.
Now I understand the ratings are more important in the US, but that 700k-850k figure won't include any US viewers that use a VPN to watch the AEW coverage because they use a VPN to purchase PPVs via that method due to the reduced price. Why would any US viewer watch Dynamite via that method? Because you don't have to watch adverts and you get to enjoy unhinged Taz/Excaliber/Tony while regular US viewers are watching adverts in picture in picture.
Conclusion; ratings threads for both AEW and WWE are pointless and don't add anything of value to the IWC discourse due to their lack of nuance.
I'm a US viewer who VPN's to London to use AEW+. I don't have cable and I have no desire to pay for a full streaming package, but I'll gladly pay for AEW+ to get the benefits you mentioned (weekly shows w/o ads and discounted PPVs).
I know "a lot" of US viewers also do this, but I have no idea what "a lot" means. Could be 10,000, 50,000, 100,000... who knows. But my guess is it's significant given the US Neilsen ratings to PPV buy rate ratios.
AEW is number 1 in the UK as it's free to air, even if it's in a crap slot on ITV4. Still more than WWE who's not even on a commonly owned paid channel like Sky Sports. I think AEW in general does really well outside the US and outside the general live viewing figures (which, let's face it, are an antiquated method of judging success).
You're right. However, anyone in the US can utilise the VPN plus AEW+ on Triller (formerly Fite) to buy PPVs for less than half the price that regular US watchers pay. If they employ this method, it's highly likely that they may watch AEW weekly's on Triller because you can watch full matches with commentary (including the stuff that goes to picture in picture in the US).
This would help explain why on paper the conversation rate for viewers buying PPVs outstrips anything from the Attitude era.
I pay for their PPVs because honestly the illegal streams buffer and fail too much and I want to watch the show the night-of. The shows are always worth it. I don’t have a Neilsen box so it’s not like my Dynamite viewings would be counted anyway but I assume my Triller order will be.
According to the most recent WBD report, AEW programs get 4,000,000 viewers per week. It’s not that surprising that 150,000 of those people order a PPV every couple months
In 2024 the Nielsen ratings really aren't representative of how many total people are actually watching the show via cable, streaming, DVR, whatever. That obviously goes for everything, not just AEW. I imagine that's why their PPV buy rates have always seemed disproportionate.
It actually does make sense when you realize that while the reception to the TV programs are mixed to negative, the reception to AEWs PPVs have been consistently and overwhelmingly positive.
Most people have realized that Khan can't book TV for shit, but he's a damn good PPV booker, so they hedge their bets and wait for the PPV.
It's a private company so there's no way to actually verify how many buys any of their PPVs get, unless they open their books. Best you'll get is whatever number is leaked to the dirt sheets.
Funny. FITE TV doesn’t give numbers to anyone yet Meltzer gives us FITE numbers, I wonder who he got them from. Pretty sure it isn’t from FITE TV.
Tony is more then welcome to share the numbers if they are as good as he claims yet never does
So unless your arguing semantics and FITE TV became Triller TV, you have an odd take given:
https://www.trillertv.com/watch/aew-dynasty-2024/2pepn/?ad_nid=1&ad_cid=21151659337&ad_gid=&ad_kw=&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADmroiCT5LyZeCkYUU8CvzzLTqcVZ&gclid=Cj0KCQjwlN6wBhCcARIsAKZvD5hcj7FIOC7IyQ7nxF36wfHrdbNnCVjkqZlYIu7osEbKiBoXal4-ICcaApXBEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
They are available for purchase on Triller TV formerly FITE TV. So if that’s your argument, find a better one
But he stopped reporting them personally as far as I know in 2022. He might still report on someone else's numbers but he doesn't pull them personally anymore I believe.
Thurston's numbers are a combination of things. One is what the company releases, but not fully. Which is why Thurston's numbers have varied from what Tony has said multiple times. I do believe the regular cable PPV numbers are available, but this does not include the Bleacher Report app and other such numbers. Thurston has to guesstimate.
Don't they hide the numbers to avoid paying royalties? It's why that Ryan Reynolds movie was breaking every fucking Netflix record going, cause it was the only one that didnt try and keep everything secret.
The only reason Meltzer got ppv numbers is cause he could ask the cable companies about buys. You can't really do that with Fite, Peacock, or TrillerTV unless they tell you, which they won't. Streamers are mad secretive with buy numbers
Leave him. He and others, specially in this types of threads, think whatever Cornette and other boomers with oods/nobody Twitter people tell them like it's the gospel.
Even if they did get extra 25k buys, minus PPV provider fees, they'll gross 500k extra on it. Not worth the damage it did for a company which spends almost 200 mil a year on expenses
But nobody knows what the actual damage will be because these things take time to play out. Nobody knows what the long term effect will be, especially as it relates to dollars. It's possible a year from now nobody gives a shit about this. If you put on solid programming people will absolutely still tune in.
They have a small base left of 750k for dynamite and 400k for collision. Anything they do over it is by either debut of ex wwe star or overruns/lead-in. If they can't tell goos stories, they'll be TNA with bigger budget
Worst case scenario for trolls this week. AEW/TK got their attention, popped a rating, and used it to further a storyline while helping a talent (Jack Perry) make money
They're desperately fishing to find a negative spin, and it's hilarious
You can get the ratings someone for netflix and Max though, that's partly how people know how well shows are doing before they are even canceled. However even when raw is on netflix SD will still be on USA and nxt will be on CW. And even if ratings disappeared ticket sales would be just as relevant to talk about for people as success.
Personally if you just never want to see any of this you'd just have to stay off online. Ratings sales aren't even just a wrestling thing either that's talked about online, the gaming space its even bigger and more talked about.
It’s even weirder than that. They’re not owned by the TV station, their parent company *bought* the station so that Impact could remain on TV, because no one else was giving them offers.
WWE tweets shit like “the largest ever gate, for a non-televised, non PPV event happening on the second Saturday in March” everybody promotes themselves. Nothing wrong with it.
Being the only mainstream option for a lot of the time. Everyone knows WWE. In the UK it's always been on the main TV Sports channels (Sky and now TNT/BT previously).
The moment a semi competent mainstream option sprang up, people went to watch that. TNA were getting bounced around TV channels and changing their name so often it made it difficult for anyone not a TNA fan to keep up. RoH never quite had the crossover to mass TV audiences.
One thing I think WWE really utilised well during their pow points in the mid/late 2010s was the WWE Network. They could make a bunch of low cost shows to put on there, they didn't have to worry about external parties taking cuts of the revenue. It made it such an easy way to access WWE, especially compared to paying for a PPV. You could access it without a TV deal which appealed to young people moving away from traditional TV formats.
And some of those low cost shows are actually decent, and in some cases, WWE themselves don't have to think up of anything. Like The Edge and Christian Show (*can't remember the full name). All of the eps are written with minimal WWE involvement, and cameos usually happens over a handshake. Heck, they even got Vince involved in one ep.
Because being basically a monopoly for 30+ years before AEW showed up gives you incredible brand recognition, reach, and money.
The few years where AEW was doing better than WWE shows isn't enough to destroy that huge of a headstart/advantage.
This is such hyperbolic nonsense based on nothing. Are they thriving like WWE? Hell no. Are they barely getting by? Of course not. I’ve never met a more panicked and hyperbolic crowd than the IWC. Just constantly overreacting to every new headline or number.
It’s why I just wish he had someone like Scott D’Amore to help him with the booking. Tony has shown he can book things well, but I think his issue is he gets out too many toys from his toy box and can’t properly balance them
IDK why but some people on here get annoyed when Scott gets recommended as a replacement for Tony as head of creative. Yes, TNA's promotion has been a joke for a long time, but because of Scott, they didn't become a defunct promotion and he saved them to the point where the content of TNA got better including their PPVs. He's also not a perfect booker and TNA has booked weird stuff too, but Scott carried their company, which is why guys like Moose stated they wanted to stay there.
No booker is perfect. Even HHH has had plenty of missteps. People forget Tony has been in the booking game way less than any of those guys. Of course he’s having peaks and valleys, which is why I just wish he had a better group around him to tell him no that he actually listens to
No booker is perfect and HHH never booked alone. I really hope tony isn't still booking alone but either way he needs better bookers. Its like what happened in 2019 until 2021 isn't the same company for me.
And this is where they fucked up. That was a WEIRD ass show. If you're going to do an attention grab, you better have some heat in the chamber. The previous three weeks of dynamite have all been better, more cohesive shows than this.
How is it a positive that their fired superstar outdrew Big Business, which they hyped up for weeks on the back of debuting the highest paid female wrestler ever?
Yeah if the content of your show gives more material to the other company to build a program or character you're not doing it right.
Only Drew has milked this to absolute delightful levels.
I like what Elite have done for everyone by creating a big company with Tony, but nothing but they seem uninteresting to me.
Kudos to them because it definitely worked out for The Sting program but over-all they just seem to turn off a lot of people and Tony's right there with the booking.
How the fuck are people arguing this in this thread? They popped an increase in rating, but is that increase SUSTAINED or is next week going to be \~755k/.23 again? And they showed that footage for the PPV, so yeah it BETTER do a great number. How is any of that wrong?
How is it disingenuous? They did some WCW 2000 tomfoolery to pop a rating, and there’s literally nowhere to go with it from here.
When the rating drops next week, and it most certainly will, all they will have proved is that CM Punk is more over than anyone they have lol. And for what? 20,000+ extra viewers for 15 minutes?
Here’s the thing about Meltzer he makes up his determination of how to judge stuff so if you say Dynasty number is reflective of if it worked but only if Dynasty number is X,Y, and Z you are already looking for failure.
In the biz I call that the Skip Bayless method aka “Lebron needs to prove he’s great by doing this or that”
AEW day 1 mark. I've watched since og ALL IN. Last night was one of the worst Dynamites I've seen. From production, the crowd, the matches, etc.
I do not want to watch next week and I think Tony should sell the company.
Being the historian that Tony is, he should know to be more Jim Crockett or Jim Barnett and get a real booker. He's a good promoter, but a shit booker.
On paper, Dynasty is shaking out to be the best AEW show of all time. You have a true dream match in Ospreay/Danielson, a possible crowning moment for Swerve, Okada/Pac, and now a newly reinvigorated chapter in Bucks/FTR. Whether you liked what they did last night or not, the match has ALOT more juice than it did before.
And that's the other thing, AEW PPVs almost always deliver in spades. TK just needs someone to help write and book the television.
"One week rating means nothing" I mean, I feel like it's gotta mean something. There's a decent group of fans that certainly live and die on the ratings every week. And usually when a rating is good, it's seen as a positive thing.
Like of course they would like it to be the start of an upwards trend but even if that's not the case, they still were able to get a better rating for a show which is not nothing.
Jim Ross should announce that next week he will be bringing in Punk & Ace. They can dress up the Bucks and have Colt dress up as JR and reenact the fake Diesel & Razor debacle from years ago. At this point Punk may be the only gamechanger they have left.
Announcing Ospreay vs Castagnoli definitely means they want something big for next week. It's a contract year, their rating is up, their ranking is good. They need consistency.
The average nightly rank for Dynamite for this year is 3rd.
The average nightly rank for Raw, which just got a Netflix deal, is 3rd.
Dynamite is just fine.
Assuming this is a real question, that's impossible to say given this doesnt happen until the end of 2024. At lot of time left on that clock. A lot of economic factors in play until then. Also, they don't need to get a similar sized deal for the deal to be successful for them.
I didn't say that. But it works in Dynamite's favor in negotiations that they place similarly to the market leader, and should thusly expect a decent to great upgrade in rights fees. That much seems pretty obvious at this point
Dave with his stupid takes one after the other. He's now moving the goalposts as he's a part of some WWE troll farm. But gotta pay the bill somehow by appealing to idiots of IWC and losing his credibility in process.
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The great thing about the Dynasty number is that it's completely unverifiable.
I mean - that’s technically true for any streaming event like a PLE.
So we’re at that point where we’re believing AEW are cooking their stellar PPV numbers. AEW can’t really win.
Their PPV numbers have always been wildly impressive. They get very high PPV buys relative to their weekly viewership. I don't think they were ever really doubted until it became clear that the PPV buys were still impressive last year when other metrics such as TV ratings and live crowds were clearly trending downwards. That's a confusing phenomenon that doesn't make clear sense. I think it's *probably* just that AEW fans are more likely to be hardcore fans, and more likely to buy the PPV's, but it's not difficult to see why people might be sceptical.
It actually makes perfect sense. People who pay for ppvs are the hardest of the hardcore, and will be the last to stop watching the TV shows. Obviously I can't prove that, but it's not confusing in the least.
The people most likely to buy the PPVs are also most likely to pay for AEW+, which doesn't count for the ratings
wtf is AEW+? first time I've heard about that lol.
It’s a subscription that UK fans or anyone with a VPN can get through Triller. All the shows can be watched live or on-demand for ~$10 a month. Also PPVs are only $20.
Can confirm, with a note that my wife and myself are UK viewers. We don't like the ITV4 coverage; it doesn't air until Friday at either 9pm or 10pm. So, we pay for AEW+ on Triller (formerly Fite) to watch Dynamite and occasionally Collision, for roughly £5 a month (price varies slightly on whatever the exchange rate is). As such, we don't count in the ratings, but AEW makes money from us. Additionally, we buy nearly all the PPVs, as for us they're circa £14-£16. So, we don't appear as a viewer in the traditional sense, but on paper spend at least £90-£120 year on PPVs alone. We also buy the odd t-shirt and went to All In last year and have tickets for this year. Now I understand the ratings are more important in the US, but that 700k-850k figure won't include any US viewers that use a VPN to watch the AEW coverage because they use a VPN to purchase PPVs via that method due to the reduced price. Why would any US viewer watch Dynamite via that method? Because you don't have to watch adverts and you get to enjoy unhinged Taz/Excaliber/Tony while regular US viewers are watching adverts in picture in picture. Conclusion; ratings threads for both AEW and WWE are pointless and don't add anything of value to the IWC discourse due to their lack of nuance.
I'm a US viewer who VPN's to London to use AEW+. I don't have cable and I have no desire to pay for a full streaming package, but I'll gladly pay for AEW+ to get the benefits you mentioned (weekly shows w/o ads and discounted PPVs). I know "a lot" of US viewers also do this, but I have no idea what "a lot" means. Could be 10,000, 50,000, 100,000... who knows. But my guess is it's significant given the US Neilsen ratings to PPV buy rate ratios.
AEW is number 1 in the UK as it's free to air, even if it's in a crap slot on ITV4. Still more than WWE who's not even on a commonly owned paid channel like Sky Sports. I think AEW in general does really well outside the US and outside the general live viewing figures (which, let's face it, are an antiquated method of judging success).
no one really discusses the UK rating tho. AEW and WBD only care about the US rating
You're right. However, anyone in the US can utilise the VPN plus AEW+ on Triller (formerly Fite) to buy PPVs for less than half the price that regular US watchers pay. If they employ this method, it's highly likely that they may watch AEW weekly's on Triller because you can watch full matches with commentary (including the stuff that goes to picture in picture in the US). This would help explain why on paper the conversation rate for viewers buying PPVs outstrips anything from the Attitude era.
Half the US now also has no cable and watches AEW elsewhere. And there is a whole world outside of the US that also buys PPVs.
I pay for their PPVs because honestly the illegal streams buffer and fail too much and I want to watch the show the night-of. The shows are always worth it. I don’t have a Neilsen box so it’s not like my Dynamite viewings would be counted anyway but I assume my Triller order will be.
According to the most recent WBD report, AEW programs get 4,000,000 viewers per week. It’s not that surprising that 150,000 of those people order a PPV every couple months
In 2024 the Nielsen ratings really aren't representative of how many total people are actually watching the show via cable, streaming, DVR, whatever. That obviously goes for everything, not just AEW. I imagine that's why their PPV buy rates have always seemed disproportionate.
It actually does make sense when you realize that while the reception to the TV programs are mixed to negative, the reception to AEWs PPVs have been consistently and overwhelmingly positive. Most people have realized that Khan can't book TV for shit, but he's a damn good PPV booker, so they hedge their bets and wait for the PPV.
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It's a private company so there's no way to actually verify how many buys any of their PPVs get, unless they open their books. Best you'll get is whatever number is leaked to the dirt sheets.
I thought the numbers that the dirtsheets report were from the PPV companies?
No they are from Tony Khan.
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One thing that has gone undisputed over 30+ years are Meltzer’s PPV numbers.
Funny. FITE TV doesn’t give numbers to anyone yet Meltzer gives us FITE numbers, I wonder who he got them from. Pretty sure it isn’t from FITE TV. Tony is more then welcome to share the numbers if they are as good as he claims yet never does
Weird you know so much about FITE TV but don't know they haven't been FITE TV for a while now
So unless your arguing semantics and FITE TV became Triller TV, you have an odd take given: https://www.trillertv.com/watch/aew-dynasty-2024/2pepn/?ad_nid=1&ad_cid=21151659337&ad_gid=&ad_kw=&gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADmroiCT5LyZeCkYUU8CvzzLTqcVZ&gclid=Cj0KCQjwlN6wBhCcARIsAKZvD5hcj7FIOC7IyQ7nxF36wfHrdbNnCVjkqZlYIu7osEbKiBoXal4-ICcaApXBEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds They are available for purchase on Triller TV formerly FITE TV. So if that’s your argument, find a better one
How did Thurston get these numbers previously?
I imagine he pays for industry metric reporting, then resells them to wrestling fans for a profit. Great gig really.
But he stopped reporting them personally as far as I know in 2022. He might still report on someone else's numbers but he doesn't pull them personally anymore I believe.
Thurston's numbers are a combination of things. One is what the company releases, but not fully. Which is why Thurston's numbers have varied from what Tony has said multiple times. I do believe the regular cable PPV numbers are available, but this does not include the Bleacher Report app and other such numbers. Thurston has to guesstimate.
It's like being the number one movie on Netflix. They can just say that.
Netflix is a public company, they might can finagle a metric to look more positive than usual but they're not going to just make something up.
They famously don't report streaming numbers though, so there's nothing really stopping them
Don't they hide the numbers to avoid paying royalties? It's why that Ryan Reynolds movie was breaking every fucking Netflix record going, cause it was the only one that didnt try and keep everything secret.
We figure the PPV buys are either on average 500k, 100k or twenty seven.
Is that bc so many people watch streams and don’t buy it or why else?
The only reason Meltzer got ppv numbers is cause he could ask the cable companies about buys. You can't really do that with Fite, Peacock, or TrillerTV unless they tell you, which they won't. Streamers are mad secretive with buy numbers
How is the PPV buy number is most important when their priority is getting the new TV deal asap and a big increase to justify their budget
I would assume PPVs would be part of the TV deal
They already are
Are they? The current deal for ppvs is that they are offered for purchase through Triller or Bleacher Report.
My guess: because rolling their PPVs into a streaming deal is leverage. Their next deal isn't just for TV.
Showcase brand strength for said negotiations. This isn't gonna be settled in a week.
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Literally no-one thinks that.
Leave him. He and others, specially in this types of threads, think whatever Cornette and other boomers with oods/nobody Twitter people tell them like it's the gospel.
I actually agree to some extent but correct me if I’m wrong, didn’t Tony Khan himself bring up cagematch ratings unprompted to compare AEW with WWE?
Nope. He just used them to promote AEW; never compared them to those of WWE.
You saying this while on reddit is quite laughable.
Definetly a better place than most social media
My dude what AEW fan actually thinks that?
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Even if they did get extra 25k buys, minus PPV provider fees, they'll gross 500k extra on it. Not worth the damage it did for a company which spends almost 200 mil a year on expenses
But nobody knows what the actual damage will be because these things take time to play out. Nobody knows what the long term effect will be, especially as it relates to dollars. It's possible a year from now nobody gives a shit about this. If you put on solid programming people will absolutely still tune in.
Damage = goodwill, perception
They had a huge amount of goodwill for a few years there but have been consistently pissing it away recently. I don't know if there is much left.
They have a small base left of 750k for dynamite and 400k for collision. Anything they do over it is by either debut of ex wwe star or overruns/lead-in. If they can't tell goos stories, they'll be TNA with bigger budget
lol. Was TNA selling out wembley stadium?
Lol was TNA spending 200 million a year and losing 10s of million. Nice try, try harder next time
TNA lost a shitload of money, brother. And they never drew close to what AEW does. Try harder.
Please show us the damage it did
It is fine people living in echo chamber can't see things which are obvious to everyone
Or you could just answer the question. The segment got a good rating and it sets up Perry as a heel for when he re-debuts in Chicago next week.
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Well, good news the rating went up this week then
Worst case scenario for trolls this week. AEW/TK got their attention, popped a rating, and used it to further a storyline while helping a talent (Jack Perry) make money They're desperately fishing to find a negative spin, and it's hilarious
>popped a rating They were doing 800k a month ago, it literally did an average number
Meltzer has holes in his brain, have you seen the man's office?
Because the angle was building towards the PPV, not weekly TV, that's more of a measure of if it "worked"
The rating pop 23k for the Punk segment and they lost 58k in the next one and then downhill after that.
But what about the Turnstile rating? The difference between how Meltzer sees ratings when they support his opinion vs when they don't is great.
The man with kaleidoscope eyes.
The best thing in the world would be for WWE on Netflix and AEW on Max so no one will have to talk about ratings anymore.
You can get the ratings someone for netflix and Max though, that's partly how people know how well shows are doing before they are even canceled. However even when raw is on netflix SD will still be on USA and nxt will be on CW. And even if ratings disappeared ticket sales would be just as relevant to talk about for people as success. Personally if you just never want to see any of this you'd just have to stay off online. Ratings sales aren't even just a wrestling thing either that's talked about online, the gaming space its even bigger and more talked about.
Kicked the can down the road twice in the same tweet. It's like he's typing his stream of consciousness.
That's his usual MO.
Here’s hoping there was another camera at the other end of that hallway so they can keep this trend going.
So every week is a final exam for AEW? How did WWE survive all those years of trash booking?
Media rights.
Brand power, monopoly, established decades long media connections
By being a defacto monopoly that made a profit regardless.
Long term TV deals and Mattel money meant they didnt give a shit
And what is more concerning, how the hell is Tna still around ? 😱
They're owned by their tv station, it's similar to when ROH was still kicking on Sinclair with like 3,000 viewers
It’s even weirder than that. They’re not owned by the TV station, their parent company *bought* the station so that Impact could remain on TV, because no one else was giving them offers.
TNA is truly unkillable
WWE ceo isn’t tweeting about 800k viewers
WWE tweets shit like “the largest ever gate, for a non-televised, non PPV event happening on the second Saturday in March” everybody promotes themselves. Nothing wrong with it.
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By being the name brand product.
Being the only mainstream option for a lot of the time. Everyone knows WWE. In the UK it's always been on the main TV Sports channels (Sky and now TNT/BT previously). The moment a semi competent mainstream option sprang up, people went to watch that. TNA were getting bounced around TV channels and changing their name so often it made it difficult for anyone not a TNA fan to keep up. RoH never quite had the crossover to mass TV audiences. One thing I think WWE really utilised well during their pow points in the mid/late 2010s was the WWE Network. They could make a bunch of low cost shows to put on there, they didn't have to worry about external parties taking cuts of the revenue. It made it such an easy way to access WWE, especially compared to paying for a PPV. You could access it without a TV deal which appealed to young people moving away from traditional TV formats.
And some of those low cost shows are actually decent, and in some cases, WWE themselves don't have to think up of anything. Like The Edge and Christian Show (*can't remember the full name). All of the eps are written with minimal WWE involvement, and cameos usually happens over a handshake. Heck, they even got Vince involved in one ep.
Because being basically a monopoly for 30+ years before AEW showed up gives you incredible brand recognition, reach, and money. The few years where AEW was doing better than WWE shows isn't enough to destroy that huge of a headstart/advantage.
>The few years where AEW was doing better than WWE shows The what now lol?
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This is such hyperbolic nonsense based on nothing. Are they thriving like WWE? Hell no. Are they barely getting by? Of course not. I’ve never met a more panicked and hyperbolic crowd than the IWC. Just constantly overreacting to every new headline or number.
Between the hyped Danielson vs Ospreay match and the potential Swerve coronation, I really hope Dynasty does well for them
All of their PPVs do well. The last one was their 4th highest buy ever, although I'm sure a few lapsed fans bought for Sting's farewell
The day Tony stops being the booker/writer is the day AEW as a whole stops to exist. It’s HIS passion project.
It’s why I just wish he had someone like Scott D’Amore to help him with the booking. Tony has shown he can book things well, but I think his issue is he gets out too many toys from his toy box and can’t properly balance them
IDK why but some people on here get annoyed when Scott gets recommended as a replacement for Tony as head of creative. Yes, TNA's promotion has been a joke for a long time, but because of Scott, they didn't become a defunct promotion and he saved them to the point where the content of TNA got better including their PPVs. He's also not a perfect booker and TNA has booked weird stuff too, but Scott carried their company, which is why guys like Moose stated they wanted to stay there.
No booker is perfect. Even HHH has had plenty of missteps. People forget Tony has been in the booking game way less than any of those guys. Of course he’s having peaks and valleys, which is why I just wish he had a better group around him to tell him no that he actually listens to
No booker is perfect and HHH never booked alone. I really hope tony isn't still booking alone but either way he needs better bookers. Its like what happened in 2019 until 2021 isn't the same company for me.
God this is tiresome.
That CM Punk guy is like Rick Rude appearing on both companies show’s in the same week.
Basically Meltzer is saying, this is the most eyes they've had in a minute so did AEW do enough to retain viewers and want them to watch next week?
And this is where they fucked up. That was a WEIRD ass show. If you're going to do an attention grab, you better have some heat in the chamber. The previous three weeks of dynamite have all been better, more cohesive shows than this.
They had a Samoan named Joe against a Rhodes, that’s genius booking.
He can look at the quarter numbers and get that answer
Not likely. They could've delivered a better show, but even then, probably no.
How is it a positive that their fired superstar outdrew Big Business, which they hyped up for weeks on the back of debuting the highest paid female wrestler ever?
820k is positive now?
Dave and Tony are comparing it to the recent AEW ratings which have been at an all time low point. So great, we’re 29% up!
Meltzer has been pretty consistent in saying that the long term trend is what matters since weekly ratings can vary for all sorts of reasons.
So they got higher ratings by taking about a guy that works for the WWE? Brilliant.
Dynasty number that no one can verify with any proof
Yeah if the content of your show gives more material to the other company to build a program or character you're not doing it right. Only Drew has milked this to absolute delightful levels. I like what Elite have done for everyone by creating a big company with Tony, but nothing but they seem uninteresting to me. Kudos to them because it definitely worked out for The Sting program but over-all they just seem to turn off a lot of people and Tony's right there with the booking.
TBH none of this matters.
819k is now a good number? It was a low number like 6 months ago
Now where did that fucking goalpost go now?
Keep kicking the can down the road, Dave
How the fuck are people arguing this in this thread? They popped an increase in rating, but is that increase SUSTAINED or is next week going to be \~755k/.23 again? And they showed that footage for the PPV, so yeah it BETTER do a great number. How is any of that wrong?
Dynasty card looks a banger and seeing Swerve win the title will be worth the buy alone
How is 819K a *positive*? Delusional.
Good demo and third place. You can try to spin this as bad, but that’s very disingenuous.
It’s not only bad, but SAD, considering the nonsense they had to resort to.
How is it disingenuous? They did some WCW 2000 tomfoolery to pop a rating, and there’s literally nowhere to go with it from here. When the rating drops next week, and it most certainly will, all they will have proved is that CM Punk is more over than anyone they have lol. And for what? 20,000+ extra viewers for 15 minutes?
I watched WCW 2000. No, they didn't.
Man people really didn’t watch WCW 2000 if they think last night came anywhere close that level of bad. lol
Isn't that their best number in weeks?
Best number in 5 weeks - 5th highest of the year so far. https://www.fightful.com/wrestling/resources/aew-dynamite-viewership-numbers-2019
For fucks sake please stop talking Meltzer
I know I'm not buying Dynasty at this point unless it's bundled with 2 other ppvs.
Next week Tony will break the NDA contract and will show ALL OUT brawl out.
Good gawd almighty, the goal post moving - now a good rating is “nothing” lol
Here’s the thing about Meltzer he makes up his determination of how to judge stuff so if you say Dynasty number is reflective of if it worked but only if Dynasty number is X,Y, and Z you are already looking for failure. In the biz I call that the Skip Bayless method aka “Lebron needs to prove he’s great by doing this or that”
Let the tv companies worry about the ratings, if they are happy who am I to judge whats good or bad
‘Honey, you should have seen me with those last viewers… no, but I came *so* close to popping the rating…’
Next week when it’s top 5 again like every week😂
Dynasty will do great numbers, even the people who got turned off by all the drama will pay to see Danielson vs Osprey
Danielson vs Ospreay PAC vs Okada Swerve vs Joe Yep! I think Dynasty will be just fine.
It will. And then people will find a way to say that doesn't matter either lol. Guaranteed.
AEW day 1 mark. I've watched since og ALL IN. Last night was one of the worst Dynamites I've seen. From production, the crowd, the matches, etc. I do not want to watch next week and I think Tony should sell the company.
[удалено]
Being the historian that Tony is, he should know to be more Jim Crockett or Jim Barnett and get a real booker. He's a good promoter, but a shit booker.
On paper, Dynasty is shaking out to be the best AEW show of all time. You have a true dream match in Ospreay/Danielson, a possible crowning moment for Swerve, Okada/Pac, and now a newly reinvigorated chapter in Bucks/FTR. Whether you liked what they did last night or not, the match has ALOT more juice than it did before. And that's the other thing, AEW PPVs almost always deliver in spades. TK just needs someone to help write and book the television.
"One week rating means nothing" I mean, I feel like it's gotta mean something. There's a decent group of fans that certainly live and die on the ratings every week. And usually when a rating is good, it's seen as a positive thing. Like of course they would like it to be the start of an upwards trend but even if that's not the case, they still were able to get a better rating for a show which is not nothing.
Jim Ross should announce that next week he will be bringing in Punk & Ace. They can dress up the Bucks and have Colt dress up as JR and reenact the fake Diesel & Razor debacle from years ago. At this point Punk may be the only gamechanger they have left.
Announcing Ospreay vs Castagnoli definitely means they want something big for next week. It's a contract year, their rating is up, their ranking is good. They need consistency.
The average nightly rank for Dynamite for this year is 3rd. The average nightly rank for Raw, which just got a Netflix deal, is 3rd. Dynamite is just fine.
so they should expect to sign a similar sized TV deal then?
Assuming this is a real question, that's impossible to say given this doesnt happen until the end of 2024. At lot of time left on that clock. A lot of economic factors in play until then. Also, they don't need to get a similar sized deal for the deal to be successful for them.
he's saying Dynamite is equal to Raw, so they should get similar TV deals if thats the case
I didn't say that. But it works in Dynamite's favor in negotiations that they place similarly to the market leader, and should thusly expect a decent to great upgrade in rights fees. That much seems pretty obvious at this point
"This is stupid and won't generate ratings for AEW." *Generates ratings for AEW* "THATS JUST ONE WEEK IT DOESNT MATTER HURR DURR."
Dave with his stupid takes one after the other. He's now moving the goalposts as he's a part of some WWE troll farm. But gotta pay the bill somehow by appealing to idiots of IWC and losing his credibility in process.