AEW Dynamite’s viewership dropped significantly this week when it was moved to Tuesday due to the Major League Baseball playoffs.
The number was expected to drop on Tuesday night, but it was much lower than expected, with only 329,000 viewers (0.10 in 18-49) compared to NXT’s 874,000 viewers (0.24 in 18-49). Granted, NXT was loaded with main roster talent, including Randy Orton in the main event, but as noted in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, AEW’s dwindling audience year after year is concerning.
Live attendance has been a problem, with photos showing half-empty buildings at some Dynamite and Collision shows. According to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, 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, the following week’s matches were announced on television. The majority of Dynamite and Collision matches are now announced via social media platforms. There’s also the issue of inadequate promotion in local markets. Wrestlers have been doing interviews on local television stations, but it does not appear to be enough to address their attendance issues. Another issue is that when AEW promotes ticket sales, they often use top names in their graphics, but those names are not scheduled to appear on the show as advertised.
The good news for AEW is that they now have time to address their issues thanks to a three-year deal worth $555 million with WBD. Meltzer wrote about the new deal:
“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.”
