AEW Dynamite took a big hit to their viewership this week when they moved to Tuesday because of the Major League Baseball playoffs.
It was expected that the number would drop on Tuesday night but it was much lower than expected at just 329,000 viewers (0.10 in 18-49) to NXT’s 874,000 viewers (0.24 18-49). Granted, NXT was loaded up with main roster talent that included Randy Orton in the main event but, as pointed out in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, the dwindling audience for AEW from year to year is concerning.
Live attendance has been a problem and there have been photos of half empty buildings at some Dynamite and Collision shows. Dave Meltzer wrote in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter that AEW has been “hemorrhaging 18-34 viewers with numbers that would have been thought to be almost impossible a few weeks ago” and there has been a consistent decline with the key age group since February. Meltzer added, “I never thought they’d get to WCW 2000 attendance numbers, they are not that far off. Creatively they are far ahead, but the base was never nearly as large to fall from. Both had the disadvantage of being cold when WWE caught fire so there is that similarity.”
During the early years of AEW Dynamite, matches for the following week were announced on TV. Now, most matches for Dynamite and Collision are announced on social media. There’s also the issue with lack of promotion in local markets. Wrestlers have been doing interviews on local TV stations but that doesn’t seem to be enough to solve their attendance problems. Another issue is when AEW promotes ticket sales, they will use top names on their graphic but oftentimes, those names are not booked to appear on the show as advertised.
The good news for AEW is they now have time to work on their issues because they have a three-year deal with WBD worth $555 million. On the new deal, Meltzer wrote:
“AEW will be more profitable next year than any year in WCW history except perhaps 1998 (adjusting for inflation it would not top 1998 without a FOX deal, and likely would if that deal were to happen it would). Even adjusting for inflation it would be far more profitable than WWF was any year until 1998-1999, as well as WWE from 2011 to 2017 although some of those years would be close factoring in inflation. To show how monumental this is, even adjusting for inflation, it would likely beat WWE/WWF profits every year but the 1998-99 fiscal year, 1999-2000, 2001-02, and the fiscal years from 2003-04 through 2010, and then again from 2018 to the present when profits went through the roof.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit F4WOnline.com with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
