The introduction of a new television ratings methodology by Nielsen has caused a significant drop in the reported viewership for major professional wrestling programs, leading to confusion and concern within the industry about the long-term financial impact. The new system, called “Big Data + Panel,” has resulted in lower reported numbers for shows like WWE NXT and AEW Dynamite compared to the previous panel-only measurement system.
The new method combines the data from Nielsen’s traditional panel of approximately 42,000 households with a much larger data set from 45 million households and 75 million devices. While this is intended to provide a more accurate representation of viewership, it has had a pronounced negative effect on the numbers reported for wrestling shows.
For example, this past Tuesday’s episode of WWE NXT on The CW averaged 572,000 viewers and a 0.10 rating in the 18-49 demographic under the new system. This was a 41.2 percent drop in the demo from the previous week. However, under the old method, the show would have drawn a 0.16 rating in the demo, a much smaller decrease.
Similarly, Wednesday’s anniversary episode of AEW Dynamite on TBS averaged just 465,000 viewers and a 0.09 rating in the 18-49 demo, a record low for the show in its regular time slot. Both shows aired opposite a high-rated New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox MLB playoff game, but the ratings change is seen as the primary factor for the low numbers.
Writing on WrestlingObserver.com, Dave Meltzer detailed the demographic impact on AEW, stating, “As for where it hurt most, males 18-34 were down 66 percent, women 18-34 were down 57 percent, males 35-49 were down 27 percent and women 35-49 were up 16 percent”.
Meltzer called the new methodology a “disaster for pro wrestling,” with his primary concern being the long-term narrative these new numbers will create. “While nothing in reality has changed, these numbers are going to be viewed over the long term with the conclusion young people don’t watch wrestling,” he wrote. “And that’s a very bad conclusion when the vast majority of revenue comes from television”.
On his Wrestling Observer Radio show, Meltzer elaborated that the new system was expected to benefit sports, but wrestling has been an outlier. “The idea was that that football would get an artificial boost,” he said. “Sports is up and wrestling is down a lot, and I haven’t seen anything else down a lot at the level of wrestling. We don’t know why yet. I am absolutely certain we will know why. Because, quite frankly, everyone in both companies is trying to figure out why”.
Meltzer further explained the significant financial stakes involved. “I don’t think people really understand the magnitude of this, because this is tens and hundreds of millions of dollars that these ratings mean to these companies, not just in ad rates, but in value on the next deals,” he said. “And this undercuts it greatly going forward. You go from being a star performer to an also-ran”.
He used the recent NXT viewership as a prime example of the perception problem. “The new number is a 0.10, which is like a terrible number,” Meltzer explained, comparing it to the 0.16 the show would have received under the old system. “People have gone to me and go like, see that number, ‘Oh, my God, this invasion angle is tanking.’ And it’s like, it’s actually not. It’s actually doing well”.
Although real-world metrics like ticket and merchandise sales have not changed, the perception of wrestling’s value to television networks, where the majority of revenue comes from, is now at risk due to the new reporting system.
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