This weekend, the speculation and controversy of the CM Punk/AEW debacle, drama that stretches back to September of last year after the infamous All Out press conference and the locker room brawl that followed it, will finally come to a close. After months of rumors and online jabs, the two sides worked out an agreement that will bring the former ROH, WWE, and AEW champion back to television with the debut of Collision, the new two-hour show that will be slotted for Saturdays, with the general assumption that Punk will be the centerpiece of the new program.
As is the case with any premiere, the debut of a show will probably garner a solid number, and with the first Collision broadcast in Punk’s hometown of Chicago, ticket sales should be solid as well, but will his drawing power extend beyond his home turf?
Outside of Chicago, the bulk of the first several weeks of the Saturday show will take place on the Canadian loop, which also has the Forbidden Door pay-per-view scheduled for Toronto the week after the Collision debut. Despite the major population center of Canada being in Toronto, the extensive wrestling history throughout the western side of the country suggests that All Elite should be able to draw from that fan base, especially with the association of the Owen Hart tournament.
However, the most recent reports, including those that were published after the official CM Punk announcement from Tony Khan on Dynamite, have said that ticket sales for most of the scheduled Collision tapings have remained sluggish.
As I wrote a few weeks ago before Punk was confirmed for the Saturday show, the logistics of adding another show to the weekly schedule extend far beyond just the ability to book a program that will draw ratings against tough competition on more or less a regular basis. There will be college football, sports playoffs, the occasional big time boxing card, and UFC pay-per-views on the same night as Collision. That equation itself can be very tough to solve, especially when outside of the competition of major events, Saturday isn’t deemed a great night for traditional television.
That being said, the other major hurdle that is arguably just as big for the addition of another event to the AEW line-up is that the company has to essentially double its ability to draw fans to the arena.
In the current economy with the current ticket prices, along with ticket fees that are such a scam that there was discussion of a congressional investigation, it’s an extremely tough sell to get fans to purchase live event tickets to a major arena more than maybe once a year. Unfortunately, the vast majority of that has nothing to do with pro wrestling so there’s not much the organization can do to affect the distribution of tickets or the impact of inflation on the economy. For example, there were several years, especially since the internet became common for ticket purchases, that scalplers, those shady characters that used to stand outside buildings to hustle last-minute tickets to events, bought blocks of tickets specifically for the resell market. If a specific event or concert had a high demand or sold out quickly, those scalplers could get a decent return on their investment without standing outside the venue the night of a show. Instead, they could list the tickets for sale online immediately to capitalize on the high demand of tickets, and thus could do so for events around the country, not just their local area. Since football seats are still sold primarily through season tickets so the buyer pays a face value for tickets to the home games for an entire season, scalpers can still make some hefty cash from NFL games.
However, Ticketmaster, who are as shady as any government committee that might investigate it, saw scalpers making a big profit on tickets sold through their service so the company wanted its piece of the pie. In an effort to combat the secondary market, Ticketmaster put in place in recent years, a ticket scale that will increase or decrease the official ticket prices through online sales depending on the demand for tickets at any given ticket. For example, if several people access the online presale for tickets, seats remain at their face value for a very short time until the price of better seats increase because of the amount of buyers that are online to purchase tickets. As well as the “premium seats” fee that will increase the price of ringside seats literally hundreds of dollars almost immediately after a presale stars for an event. Granted, it’s possible that All Elite Wrestling priced their tickets too high, and if that’s a reflection of the rental cost of the venue then prehaps they should book different buildings for their television shows, but the point being, there’s only so much they can do from an administrative stand point to try to reduce the fees that prevent some fans from purchasing tickets. If anything, the advance might be weak, but a lack of sales also works the other way, with Ticketmaster reducing prices the close it gets to showtime in an effort to move as many tickets as possible so they don’t miss out on the opportunity to collect those fees.
The point being, the hurdles to sell tickets to major arena in the modern era extend beyond just the ability to book stars on the show.
As much as I don’t think the amount of star power that CM Punk brings to the table was worth the hassle that he caused AEW or that the level of drawing power he has justifies the drama he continued to cause in the weeks before he negotiated a return to the company, it’s almost unfair to expect any individual star to shoulder that much responsibility to sell tickets for a weekly show. Keep in mind, while it’s definitely by design, the WWE sells ticket to it’s television and pay-per-views based more on the brand than anything else. Sure, there are positives and negatives to that strategy, but the bottom line is, the WWE moves tickets because of the brand recognition and market share that it has based on not only the current generation, but its history as well. Obviously, AEW has only existed for just over four years so it didn’t have a chance to establish that type of brand awareness, Still, the fact remains that in the modern era, there’s not one name on the card that is truly a needle mover outside of John Cena or possibly Roman Reigns.
As much as CM Punk might think so, he’s not as big of a star as Stone Cold, The Rock, or any of the other truly top guys from a previous generation, especially compared to their prime years.
If Collision can’t move tickets, and so far it hasn’t, that’s not an indication that CM Punk can’t sell tickets, but rather that there’s probably just not a demand for another weekly AEW television show. Keep in mind, as I wrote about previously, the ratings for Dynamite went from around a million viewers during Punk’s initial stint in the company to hovering to just under a million viewers in recent months so there’s nothing to demonstrate that the audience was clamoring for more All Elite content. MJF is the world champion and supposedly a generational talent so why isn’t he used to sell tickets or being held to the standard of Punk as being the one to promote sales for the company?
Again, considering that the scale ticket pricing will decrease the price if tickets haven’t been sold prior to the start of the show, it’s very possible that the Collision shows on the Canadian loop have a smaller advance, but a better walk up crowd to purchase seats the night of the event. Still, and this is the biggest problem ahead of the launch of Collision, nothing about the early sales for Collision are an indication that the show will draw in the future. Keep in mind, Tony Khan is trying to sell live event tickets on Wednesdays and Saturdays every week, which is very difficult in the current economy and in the modern era. So far, CM Punk isn’t the guy that will be the key draw for Collision and it’s probably not a wise business strategy to bank on a performer that was injury prone to be the top draw for the show.
It remains to be seen how Collision does on a long-term basis, but from the lack of ticket sales so far, it should be at least concerning that Collision might have the same effect on AEW that Thunder had on WCW several years ago.
What do you think? Share your thoughts, opinions, feedback, and anything else that was raised on Twitter @PWMania and Facebook.com/PWMania.
Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
E mail [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram & Facebook @jimlamotta89
