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Tony will make that episode of Dynamite the absolute very best episode ever! With surprises around every corner! Who will debut?! Get your tickets today!! …tumbleweed…
Too bad they can't get Mike Graham for the Rise and Fall of AEW DVD.
"Booked a thousand debuts, never drew a dime."
 
Where are all the AEW defense force people at?

@LifeInCattleClass
@3venflow
@Prosper
@DammitChrist

Get the eff in here!
AEW's ticket sales are not as high as a year ago, that much is true. They had just signed two huge free agents a year ago and Omega wasn't gone yet, so they had their maximum drawing options.

However, they are not anywhere near disastrous state. They're not as competitive with WWE (televised) as they were last year, but they're still doing some solid business. They just did a million dollar gate again, which is far more impressive than it sounds.

Wednesday's show in Philly has moved 4,700 which isn't bad for a TV event. Could be more, but it's hardly a disaster and has one match announced. They just opened hardcam side seats too and I wouldn't be surprised if it's closer to 5k by bell time.

Jan 4 Seattle sold over 5,100 already. @La Parka is right in saying they should do more new markets, they did almost 15,000 for their Cali debut earlier this year. They have re-run the same markets over and over. They already did the same building in Philly this year for the show with Dax vs. Cash.

Full Gear pre-sale + day one sold over 9,000 and this will probably turn out to be their fifth $1m gate of 2022 and all-time if it sells the rest when they open more seats.

Canada Dynamite tickets flew and the event would've been better at a bigger building. They should have done two or three shows in Canada really.

The worst one is the live Rampage/Battle of the Belts in DC which last I checked was around 2,000. There's a lot of live Rampages coming up and they're a tough sell because Rampage hasn't exactly set the world on fire. AEW is practically doubling its number of live events in October and November and testing the waters with Rampage as a live show regularly.

TNA would've bent over backwards for this sort of 'disastrous' sales. Come bell time, Wednesday's show will likely have a number that would've been in TNA's top five of all time domestic attendances.

If AEW want to put more butts in seats they can drop prices again. The typical ticket, particularly for marquee events, is a lot more than it was a year ago, which is why they're doing bigger gates. I don't think they'll do this unless there is a negative long-term trend where profits are lower from higher prices/lower attendances than lower prices/higher attendances. This has probably been AEW's biggest year for ticket revenues even though it'll be their second biggest year for total attendance.

All Out 2021 = 10,126 at NOW Arena = $630k
Full Gear 2021 = 10,442 at Target Center = $650k
All Out 2022 = 10,014 at NOW Arena = $1.1m
 
They need to venture out. I get that some cities are not hot wrestling crowds, WWE have helped to prove that with their schedule. Some places suck for fans. But AEW still needs to head towards them, you won’t get sellouts in the same few cities every few weeks.

And come to the U.K. ffs. Fan base here is made for shows like Dynamite.
 
So I wonder if they let Bryan Danielson actually look strong in Seattle? I won't be watching until I hear they are doing something worthwhile with him and treating him commensurate to his talent. He'll probably lose clean to Darby that night. :bryan:

At least Total Kunt won't keep preventing him from working for DEFY once that Dynamite card happens.
 
All the injuries, CM Punk/Elite suspensions, one of your top stars preaching how he wants to jump ship in 2024, and all the backstage drama crap sure isn't helping maintain interest. Plus the lack of actual good storylines also hurts the product. I used to defend AEW to death, but this clusterfucky bs and backstage egos have gone a bit too far now.

And to those who say "Why does the backstage stuff hurt your enjoyment of the product?", it's rather simple: Punk and the Elite were newly crowned champions and that was all thrown away a couple days later. Makes my investment in watching All Out feel worthless. Sure, the matches were great, but I want a solid payoff as well besides just marking out for in ring action. The constant injuries are also an issue in this regard. The Jungle Boy/Christian feud is the current best feud and now Christian is injured...then Bobby Fish leaves so all that UE vs Elite build up was for nothing. Then u get random ROH, NJPW, or Impact guys on the card that take up spots from current talent just to never be seen again. The list goes on.

AEW needs to get its shit together. Make the fans have a reason to attend and tune in because at the end of the day it's episodic weekly television. People don't want to invest time in plotlines that never lead to anything substantial.

That's kind of why I never liked watching NXT back in the day. All this build up for talent to be made jokes on the main roster (which is no longer an issue since HHH is in charge). Have proper build ups with proper payoff/end rant
 
So I wonder if they let Bryan Danielson actually look strong in Seattle? I won't be watching until I hear they are doing something worthwhile with him and treating him commensurate to his talent. He'll probably lose clean to Darby that night. :bryan:
I think they may headline that one with Danielson vs. Darby. I'm not sure what the plans for Wardlow and the TNT belt are, but Danielson would be a great TNT champ as he can defend against anyone and have a good match, which I feel is what the spirit of the TNT title was early on. Danielson (c) vs. Darby for the TNT title would be a great main event for Seattle.

Swerve is also from 30 miles away (Tacoma) and is on the poster with those two. As I said, this one sold over 5,100 tickets in its first couple of days on sale as it's a brand new market. There's lots of money to be made from new markets. In 2023 they're debuting in NorCal and the UK, but should look at places like Germany, Japan and more Canadian towns.

Image
 
How many times has AEW gone to Chicago? At least WWE is willing to visit parts of America that aren’t well known and they don’t kill the market by touring in the same city over and over.

AEW is afraid to swim in the deep waters. Heck they’re too scared to go against Raw or Smackdown head to head.
 
How many times has AEW gone to Chicago? At least WWE is willing to visit parts of America that aren’t well known and they don’t kill the market by touring in the same city over and over.

AEW is afraid to swim in the deep waters. Heck they’re too scared to go against Raw or Smackdown head to head.
Why would they go head to head when they’re literally on at different days. Agree with your first statement tho

going head to head is just poor business
 
I know a lot of people who never really liked the product, but stuck around to support competition to WWE. I think AEW took that for granted and thought that those people were fans of the product. WWE has lost about 3 million fans in the last 6-7 years, a lot of those lapsed fans want an alternative. This was a slam dunk for AEW, but they fucked it up
 
Discussion starter · #53 ·
I know a lot of people who never really liked the product, but stuck around to support competition to WWE. I think AEW took that for granted and thought that those people were fans of the product. WWE has lost about 3 million fans in the last 6-7 years, a lot of those lapsed fans want an alternative. This was a slam dunk for AEW, but they fucked it up
Fucked it up on day 1 when they had a bunch of losers like Brandon Cutler involved.
 
Here's the estimated ticket distribution average per month since going back on the road (per WrestleTix + Wrestlenomics).

July 2021: 5,249
August 2021: 6,206
September 2021: 8,479
October 2021: 4,470
November 2021: 6,053
December 2021: 6,153

January 2022: 5,127
February 2022: 5,529
March 2022: 4,672
April 2022: 5,183
May 2022: 6,740
June 2022: 7,703
July 2022: 4,985
August 2022: 5,545
September 2022: ca. 7,860 (one show left, likely will drop the average to 7,350-ish)

Top three months:

1. September 2021
2. September 2022* (likely to drop to third)
3. June 2022

Bottom three months:

1. October 2021
2. March 2022
3. July 2022

So yeah, there is no disaster, just ebbs and flows. Also reminder that ticket prices for many events are higher now too, hence their four biggest gates ever coming in 2022.
 
Smark stuff is always huge in Canada and especially the UK. Look at all the big smark YouTubers from COOLTAHOLIC to WRESSSLELAYMIA and WOTCOLTZA, they're all from the UK and they all love them some AYEDOBBYA.

I generally blame the UK wrestling culture for ruining the world, but that's a different conversation.
It wouldn't be unfair to suggest that the UK's wrestling media is largely a bunch of utterly emasculated toddlers desperately stroking at each other and whispering whimsically into each other's mouths.

And while there are the odd one or two I don't despise, for the most part I'll never understand how these little cups of semen can have spent their lives watching something about big angry men fighting and have turned out to be such lightweight, malnourished pussies...
 
AEW is slowly cooling off attendance wise, they may have to rent even smaller buildings in the future and have crowds like 90's ECW did.

Yoy for tv is down, so is demo yoy.

All Out buys were down from last year.

Was to be expected, smark fans and wrestling hipsters are mostly fickle and flip/floppy and they're unstable and very contradictory fanbase.
I did the has AEW already passed it’s peak for a reason.

They’ve passed it, and are on the downward slide now. Next year’s Grand Slam won’t sell more than half of this year’s tickets. The 2024 Grand Slam will be the last one at Ashe, and will sell less than 3K. There is only room for one competently run wrestling company.

They’re toast, whether Tony realizes it or not.
 
The economy is also a factor. People are hurting and single white dudes who work mediocre to poor jobs (the majority of AEWs audience) aren't gonna have the disposable income around to make these shows, especially when they go to the same places over and over and there's no novelty to going to another Dynamite when you've been to 4 in the last 2 years.
This is far too sensible for most of this forum. I'll translate it into snarky cunt for you.

NERR TK IS SUCH A LOOZER!!! HE HAS LOTS OF MONEY AND IT MAKES MY PEANUT DICK SEEM EVEN SMALLER!!! WHY CAN'T IT BE THE SAME AS WWE? ATTITUDE ERA, ATTITUDE ERA, ATTITUDE ERA. MIDGETS, MIDGETS, MIDGETS. NECKBEARDS, NECKBEARDS, NECKBEARDS. GEEKS, GEEKS, GEEKS!!! AEW HAS MORE LETTERS THAN I HAVE FRIENDS BUT FEWER THAN WANKS I HAVE PER DAY OVER insert female wrestler here

The rest of us get laid and enjoy life.

But yeah, the economy and visiting the same cities are probably the two largest factors by far here. Though interest is clearly there, as the expensive seats seem to be sold out.

It wouldn't be unfair to suggest that the UK's wrestling media is largely a bunch of utterly emasculated toddlers desperately stroking at each other and whispering whimsically into each other's mouths.

And while there are the odd one or two I don't despise, for the most part I'll never understand how these little cups of semen can have spent their lives watching something about big angry men fighting and have turned out to be such lightweight, malnourished pussies...
And it wouldn't be unfair that us British fans would tell you to go and eat something that isn't a mango. Unfortunately, wrestling isn't masculine at all. It's play fighting for 10 year olds. Let's be honest here.
 
How many times has AEW gone to Chicago? At least WWE is willing to visit parts of America that aren’t well known and they don’t kill the market by touring in the same city over and over.

AEW is afraid to swim in the deep waters. Heck they’re too scared to go against Raw or Smackdown head to head.

They have no reason to go head to head.
 
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