As usual, I keep informed on the slew of wrestling news to see what stories are relevant for this column and to give readers a perspective on the developments within the industry. Just yesterday, I stumbled upon a clip from Wrestling Observer Live and heard Bryan Alvarez discuss the lack of ticket sales for AEW Grand Slam, one of the company’s marquee events at Arthur Ashe Stadium. This year’s event has sold just over 5,000 tickets as compared to 11,000 tickets last year. In itself, it’s not much of a story, based on the fact that ticket sales have been sluggish for the organization across the board with the exception of pay-per-views, which sometimes has more to do with the market where those events are held than how the event wer built or promoted.
In many ways, the note about ticket sales gels with the article I wrote last week about potential oversaturation or product fatigue with the news of potentially another show added to the AEW line-up when its new television deal is announced. However, it might’ve impacted the attendance for Glam Slam in a manner that brings another aspect into the equation. As far as oversaturation or product fatigue, All In London was rightfully the focus of the organization, as it drew 50,000 fans in a stadium. Granted, it was a 30,000 decrease from the tickets sold last year, but it’s still an accomplishment for All Elite. That being said, All Out was held just two weeks later, and as I wrote at the time, there wasn’t necessarily a demand for another PPV and the argument could still be made that the storylines didn’t justify another PPV card.
Given the polarizing response to the event held earlier this month, and the car crash tactics used to attempt to add a sizzle as a substitute for substance, it might be wise for All Elite management to adjust their pay-per-view calendar next year.
It might sound simplistic, but I’d still guess it might be the correct answer, Grand Slam hasn’t sold quite as many tickets this year compared to years previously because the company hasn’t had enough time to truly build it up as anything more than just another episode of Dynamite. Sure, the name and brief history of Grand Slam has some level of cache, but the “brand” of Grand Slam doesn’t have the historic value to move tickets based on the name alone. When AEW went to the stadium named after the legendary late tennis player in 2021, there was a sell out of more than 20,000 fans in the building. In 2022, just under 14,000 tickets were sold. As mentioned, last year had 11,000 fans at the venue, and this year the number is less than half of that at just over 5,000 tickets sold ahead of Wednesday’s show.
Of course, there will naturally be diminishing returns for anything the more often it’s available, but the pattern of Grand Slam is much more drastic than that. It goes without saying that not every event or pay-per-view is going to sell out, the market doesn’t support anything at that level for every event. As popular as the NFL is, one of the reasons that it maintains its demand is that an anticipation is allowed to build up for more than half of the year during the off season. Pro wrestling is 52 weeks a year and thus will have to deal with the peaks and the valleys that go along with that schedule in every facet of the industry. It’s just a part of the nature of the beast so to speak so the goal is often to make the peaks for business as high as possible, while minimizing how low the valleys will be for the bottom line. Companies can and have done solid business even when there isn’t necessarily a hype around the product.
In the time since that first sell out at Arthur Ashe Stadium, Rampage debuted a month earlier and featured the return of CM Punk after a seven-year hiatus from the sport, Bryan Danielson debuted for the company and worked a 30-minute draw against Kenny Omega to open the stadium event, Adam Cole arrived as a part of the roster just two weeks earlier, and Dynamite still averaged around a million viewers on any given week. Fast forward a few years, CM Punk is gone amidst backstage chaos and returned to the WWE to become one of the biggest stars in the company, Bryan Danielson is the world champion, but is set to retire from full-time wrestling in a few months, Adam Cole has been on the injured list for more than a year, and Dyanmite drew 687,000 viewers last week.
Sure, Tony Khan added several high-priced free agents to the roster more recently, but the bottom line is, none of them have moved the needle, and Will Ospreay appears to be the only one truly worth the investment. Given the diminished audience and the declining ticket sales, including for Grand Slam, it implies that the presentation and lack of overall structure impact perception of the product. Yes, diehard AEW fans are going to spin it with a flimsy argument, and Dave Meltzer will award 87 stars to the latest pay-per-view high spot match, but the bottom line is, there has been a continuous decrease in the numbers for All Elite Wrestling. That doesn’t happen without some level of audience dissatisfaction. No, I’m not saying that AEW is in any danger, it will continue to exist as long as Tony’s family wants to fund it, but if an event sells a quarter of the tickets that it did just a few years ago, it’s an indication that mistakes were made with the product.
Specifically for the 2024 edition of this event, a look at the top matches on the line-up might explain why only 5,000 tickets have been sold. Jeff Jarrett vs. Adam Page is a bout that could be something, depending on the finish and how they get there. Still, it’s somewhat murky because Page/Jarrett was at its peak as a feud around the Owen Hart tournament and then Page went in a completely different direction to attempt to build the cage match against Swerve, an angle where Swerve went from baby face to heel and back to a baby face again during the storyline with Bryan Danielson. All things considered, Page nor Swerve ended up in a better spot after the feud, as far as their character, than they were before because it was a conflicting narrative with the baby face/heel dynamic. As a result of that, I’m not sure how much steam Adam Page has an an apparent heel for a match with Jarrett based on a tournament match almost two months ago.
It was great to see Nigel McGuinness get a chance to receive some well-deserved recognition at Wembley Stadium, he was a guy that was a top performer of his generation, and because it was on a smaller scale, he never quite got the credit he deserves as an in-ring performer. There’s undoubtedly a lot of history between Bryan Danielson and Nigel to build to a major match, but given that it was never fully explained why Nigel takes cheap shots at Danielson on commentary, and it’s not something that can truly be hyped in the span of just three or four weeks, it seems like Tony Khan put the match on the show expecting the fans to know why it should be considered a big deal. Obviously, longtime fans are aware of their history of absolutely stellar bouts, but keep in mind the rather minimal scale that many of those early ROH events were on in terms of audience and exposure. It’s not a knock on their talent or skills, but the national television audience in 2024 simply doesn’t know about classic matches from ROH 15 years ago.
The main event is scheduled to be Jon Moxley vs. Darby Allin with a shot at the world championship on the line. Considering that Danielson is the champion and he’s booked in a non-title bout, the fans know that there probably won’t be a baby face vs. baby face title match booked for the next pay-per-view so the audience realizes that Moxley is probably going to get the win. Along with that Swerve and MJF, two of the biggest stars in the company, aren’t scheduled for the show.
The biggest takeaway from the drop in ticket sales for Grand Slam might be that there wasn’t enough time to truly build a major card and thus the event isn’t consider “must see” this year.
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, & Threads @jimlamotta89
