DichEvans
Samurai Cop
Lenny Lazy Lane Stinks
Posts: 2,245
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Post by DichEvans on Oct 8, 2023 19:32:48 GMT -5
MJF has been actively feuding with people who most casuals (80% of the market) don't know. I don't know if that is the best thing they should be doing with a formally hot World Champ The "casuals" don't know the vast majority of AEW"s roster, but the "casuals" don't tune in to watch AEW just because ex-WWE guys hold the belt. We're not seeing seismic shifts in the ratings this week building to Jay White from what we saw back months ago when MJF feuded with Mox and Danielson. Collision's ratings haven't been massively different with the absence of CM Punk. Hell, the biggest ratings successes MJF had came from his thing with Adam Cole, a guy who 'the casuals' also don't know because he was only ever on NXT. Booking the show for the people not watching the show has never made sense. Worked in marketing. 80% of the sports business market are not hardcores "Hell, the biggest ratings successes MJF had came from his thing with Adam Cole, a guy who 'the casuals' also don't know because he was only ever on NXT. Booking the show for the people not watching the show has never made sense" That is not true. TV ratings are down 10-20% from last year, attendance is down even more. Adam Cole, the Gunn Club Gold/Jay White, and Samoa Joe don't have a single video in any of AEW's socials that are in the top 30. You're arguing with data, not an opinion |
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Post by Andew9001 on Oct 8, 2023 19:35:54 GMT -5
Perhaps they would be better off running some smaller arenas. Whatever way you look at it selling about a third of an arena that size just isn't a good look.
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Post by Final Countdown Jones on Oct 8, 2023 19:51:01 GMT -5
The "casuals" don't know the vast majority of AEW"s roster, but the "casuals" don't tune in to watch AEW just because ex-WWE guys hold the belt. We're not seeing seismic shifts in the ratings this week building to Jay White from what we saw back months ago when MJF feuded with Mox and Danielson. Collision's ratings haven't been massively different with the absence of CM Punk. Hell, the biggest ratings successes MJF had came from his thing with Adam Cole, a guy who 'the casuals' also don't know because he was only ever on NXT. Booking the show for the people not watching the show has never made sense. Worked in marketing. 80% of the sports business market are not hardcores "Hell, the biggest ratings successes MJF had came from his thing with Adam Cole, a guy who 'the casuals' also don't know because he was only ever on NXT. Booking the show for the people not watching the show has never made sense" That is not true. TV ratings are down 10-20% from last year, attendance is down even more. Adam Cole, the Gunn Club Gold/Jay White, and Samoa Joe don't have a single video in any of AEW's socials that are in the top 30. You're arguing with data, not an opinion 80% of the sports business market will not tune in to AEW Dynamite regardless of who is on it or what happens. But also, once you extrapolate an idea from data, that becomes an opinion. Claiming that something about the nature of who is or is not in their Youtube views should dictate television presence or push is an opinion. That's a value judgment based on the data. That's the opinion that marketing to an audience that isn't paying attention to AEW is the preferable option over marketing to the audience it has now and how they respond. The opinion that if they push people based on what you extrapolate from the data you're looking at, they will succeed. All of these are opinions and they are opinions that have time and again failed in wrestling. Watering itself down to be more 'for the casuals' and to put people who they would recognize did nothing for TNA but hurt it in the long run. WWE saw its ratings go down in years where it couldn't build new stars but kept blasting on with lots of big names, and the diminishing returns they saw in nostalgia episodes was tangible and measurable. There's other data to look at. No single data point is some flawless, objective point from which you can weave ideas from whole cloth that are some impartial, perfect ideal. For example, whatever you think about Adam Cole's social media placement, that's not only regularly been a story with top drawing viewership on those weeks, but it's driven multiple top-selling pieces of merch for about three months now. Shirts that have been around for an eternity still clog up the weekly top 10. Does marketing say you should, objectively, stop doing something that is directly bringing in money and moving merchandise to do some nebulous thing. Why isn't merchandise, which translates into money in AEW's pocket with every piece moved, factor into these objective not-an-opinion marketing concepts? |
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Post by Can you afford to pay me, Gah on Oct 8, 2023 20:13:46 GMT -5
Worked in marketing. 80% of the sports business market are not hardcores "Hell, the biggest ratings successes MJF had came from his thing with Adam Cole, a guy who 'the casuals' also don't know because he was only ever on NXT. Booking the show for the people not watching the show has never made sense" That is not true. TV ratings are down 10-20% from last year, attendance is down even more. Adam Cole, the Gunn Club Gold/Jay White, and Samoa Joe don't have a single video in any of AEW's socials that are in the top 30. You're arguing with data, not an opinion 80% of the sports business market will not tune in to AEW Dynamite regardless of who is on it or what happens. But also, once you extrapolate an idea from data, that becomes an opinion. Claiming that something about the nature of who is or is not in their Youtube views should dictate television presence or push is an opinion. That's a value judgment based on the data. That's the opinion that marketing to an audience that isn't paying attention to AEW is the preferable option over marketing to the audience it has now and how they respond. The opinion that if they push people based on what you extrapolate from the data you're looking at, they will succeed. All of these are opinions and they are opinions that have time and again failed in wrestling. Watering itself down to be more 'for the casuals' and to put people who they would recognize did nothing for TNA but hurt it in the long run. WWE saw its ratings go down in years where it couldn't build new stars but kept blasting on with lots of big names, and the diminishing returns they saw in nostalgia episodes was tangible and measurable. There's other data to look at. No single data point is some flawless, objective point from which you can weave ideas from whole cloth that are some impartial, perfect ideal. For example, whatever you think about Adam Cole's social media placement, that's not only regularly been a story with top drawing viewership on those weeks, but it's driven multiple top-selling pieces of merch for about three months now. Shirts that have been around for an eternity still clog up the weekly top 10. Does marketing say you should, objectively, stop doing something that is directly bringing in money and moving merchandise to do some nebulous thing. Why isn't merchandise, which translates into money in AEW's pocket with every piece moved, factor into these objective not-an-opinion marketing concepts? True because merchandise is an interesting subject in itself when you look at who the biggest sellers have been over the period. Punk was number one and even now still a top seller after the fact he is gone. Than it goes to Danhausen who was a massive seller in his own right. Now lets think about that for a moment. A guy who was in ROH during a lower part but extremely popular follow there and the indies. AEW signs him and becomes a seller before ever really doing anything with him. |
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Chuck Conry
Dennis Stamp
zombies DON'T Run
Posts: 3,852
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Post by Chuck Conry on Oct 8, 2023 20:24:37 GMT -5
Why not do some smaller arenas but make sure they at least have some interesting looks to them. Like Hammerstein or Dailys Place? Half the place being full reminds me of some Impact stuff when they were trying to go against WWE live on Mondays.
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Schizo
Dennis Stamp
Posts: 4,108 
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Post by Schizo on Oct 8, 2023 20:34:55 GMT -5
...are we really talking about the product being cold after basically everything they've been doing since All In? That’s subjective thinking. People have different enjoyment level when it comes to the product no?, sence All In they had some great shows and some really slog ones as well but overall, the product isn’t exactly hitting on all cylinders right now |
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Post by britishbulldog on Oct 8, 2023 20:46:11 GMT -5
Collision in salt lake was in our smaller arena. I believe it holds 12k. The entire hard cam side was enjoy. Entire upper bowl empty. Side across the ramp 50% sold at most.opposite hard cam 3 sections maybe 50% sold. If they had 5k I’d be stunned
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Post by Denny Zen is Cooking™ on Oct 8, 2023 20:46:29 GMT -5
Honestly, the only thing that bothers me about AEW drawing 3500-6000 fans in arenas that are probably a touch larger than they should be booking at the moment is the fact that “eDgE foRGOt To rUN tO tHe OThEr sIDe of tHE StAGe” has rapidly become the wrestling equivalent of r/onejoke and I’m not sure I’ve ever hated anything quite as much in my entire wrestling fandom.
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Post by rajaah on Oct 8, 2023 21:05:03 GMT -5
It isn't cold, it just has a dull presentation and the overall issues of the company from the past are coming home to roost. I said that they've been better at stories and characters in 2023 (at least since July or so), but for a long time the characters/stories were lacking and much of the shows were just "person who is great at wrestling" vs "person who is great at wrestling" kind of randomly.
I think the visual presentation really needs a livening up. It was supposed to get that at the beginning of the year and it did get spruced up a bit, but I'd like to see more. Trying to remember when they stopped using color crowd lighting... I know they had it at Grand Slam 2021 because I remember how blue and purple the crowd was during the Omega/Bryan match.
Looking at that Collision seat map... the double (or triple) spacing available seats is an interesting tactic that I don't think I've seen before. With the standard crowd blur effect, this kind of spacing creates the illusion that a section is full of people. It kinda reminds me of how I used to double space lines on college papers and widen the margins to get more pages out of a paper when I ran out of things to say.
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Fade
Patti Mayonnaise
Posts: 38,661
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Post by Fade on Oct 8, 2023 21:42:16 GMT -5
Why not do some smaller arenas but make sure they at least have some interesting looks to them. Like Hammerstein or Dailys Place? Half the place being full reminds me of some Impact stuff when they were trying to go against WWE live on Mondays. My first instinct was “Good idea”. Then I wondered about the “perception” issues and how that could magnify them But f*** it, if it’s a repeating pattern, just do smaller venues and yeah, if it’s spruced up, ppl will more than likely think nothing of it. |
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Schizo
Dennis Stamp
Posts: 4,108
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Post by Schizo on Oct 8, 2023 21:50:50 GMT -5
It isn't cold, it just has a dull presentation and the overall issues of the company from the past are coming home to roost. I said that they've been better at stories and characters in 2023 (at least since July or so), but for a long time the characters/stories were lacking and much of the shows were just "person who is great at wrestling" vs "person who is great at wrestling" kind of randomly. I think the visual presentation really needs a livening up. It was supposed to get that at the beginning of the year and it did get spruced up a bit, but I'd like to see more. Trying to remember when they stopped using color crowd lighting... I know they had it at Grand Slam 2021 because I remember how blue and purple the crowd was during the Omega/Bryan match. Looking at that Collision seat map... the double (or triple) spacing available seats is an interesting tactic that I don't think I've seen before. With the standard crowd blur effect, this kind of spacing creates the illusion that a section is full of people. It kinda reminds me of how I used to double space lines on college papers and widen the margins to get more pages out of a paper when I ran out of things to say. I mean like, say what you want about WWE’s set up with the over abundance of LED screens on stage and the ring,, cheap cgi during entrances, bright lights and all but it makes WWE’s product look flashy and “big league” and that attracts casual viewers, not saying that AEW needs to look “flashy” but a few promotion tweaks couldn’t hurt |
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Post by Denny Zen is Cooking™ on Oct 8, 2023 22:44:08 GMT -5
It isn't cold, it just has a dull presentation and the overall issues of the company from the past are coming home to roost. I said that they've been better at stories and characters in 2023 (at least since July or so), but for a long time the characters/stories were lacking and much of the shows were just "person who is great at wrestling" vs "person who is great at wrestling" kind of randomly. I think the visual presentation really needs a livening up. It was supposed to get that at the beginning of the year and it did get spruced up a bit, but I'd like to see more. Trying to remember when they stopped using color crowd lighting... I know they had it at Grand Slam 2021 because I remember how blue and purple the crowd was during the Omega/Bryan match. Looking at that Collision seat map... the double (or triple) spacing available seats is an interesting tactic that I don't think I've seen before. With the standard crowd blur effect, this kind of spacing creates the illusion that a section is full of people. It kinda reminds me of how I used to double space lines on college papers and widen the margins to get more pages out of a paper when I ran out of things to say. I mean like, say what you want about WWE’s set up with the over abundance of LED screens on stage and the ring,, cheap cgi during entrances, bright lights and all but it makes WWE’s product look flashy and “big league” and that attracts casual viewers, not saying that AEW needs to look “flashy” but a few promotion tweaks couldn’t hurt I understand what you’re getting at, but the PS3 era AR/CGI graphics WWE uses is about the only thing that makes it feel Bush League, to me. I have absolutely no idea why they insist on doing that. What I will say is that, to the extent “casual” professional wrestling fans even exist in 2023 they are mostly children. And the WWE visual style is far more appealing to kids than AEW is. I don’t think that really has a single thing to do with live attendance, but it absolutely has a tangible effect on TV viewership. |
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Fade
Patti Mayonnaise
Posts: 38,661
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Post by Fade on Oct 8, 2023 22:53:21 GMT -5
I mean like, say what you want about WWE’s set up with the over abundance of LED screens on stage and the ring,, cheap cgi during entrances, bright lights and all but it makes WWE’s product look flashy and “big league” and that attracts casual viewers, not saying that AEW needs to look “flashy” but a few promotion tweaks couldn’t hurt I understand what you’re getting at, but the PS3 era AR/CGI graphics WWE uses is about the only thing that makes it feel Bush League, to me. I have absolutely no idea why they insist on doing that. What I will say is that, to the extent “casual” professional wrestling fans even exist in 2023 they are mostly children. And the WWE visual style is far more appealing to kids than AEW is. I don’t think that really has a single thing to do with live attendance, but it absolutely has a tangible effect on TV viewership. yea, miss me or not with the wwe’s ar graphics, but I agree their visual presentation is probably more appealing to kids. i actually think aew’s presentation has improved (at least better than months ago) but aew’s demo’s gotten older while wwe’s gotten younger. Don’t have an answer there cause whenever it’s been brought up before it’s “aew’s marketing to a different audience”. |
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Post by The Captain on Oct 8, 2023 23:36:33 GMT -5
The AR shit has been there for years and it's still really distracting to me. Takes me out of the show when you see Bianca Belair's lips and hair thing that looks like a Castlevania monster or Cody's American Nightmare logo popping out like it's one of those 3D glasses rides at a theme park.
I think there's areas where AEW's presentation can improve, but making it even half as gaudy as WWE's would be completely unappealing.
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Post by Final Countdown Jones on Oct 8, 2023 23:59:32 GMT -5
There's also the degrees to which AEW becoming more visually like WWE is potentially undesirable. Like, a lot of 'casual wrestling fans' but even also a lot of people who talk about wrestling on the internet will refuse to see anything that isn't WWE as legitimate or worth their time. WWE is wrestling to them and anything else simply has no time for them, regardless of how successful it is or who is in it. TNA discovered this when they tried to make their programming more WWE-lite, got rid of the six-sided ring and all the unique things that drew people to the company, and crammed a bunch of recognizable faces onto it. It didn't bring in new ratings booms, and in time began to bleed away interest instead from the people who lost what they liked about TNA.
AEW has room they can imrpive, and maybe they could stand to flair up the visuals a little bit, but that's not to draw viewers. The people watching WWE don't need to watch something that isn't WWE, they can just f***in'. Watch WWE. And conversely, some people watching AEW are watching AEW and not WWE because they don't want to watch WWE, and it would turn away AEW fans. There are very serious risks with a lot of historical precedent against them for taking a "niche" (given how strongly AEW performs as one of if not the top show on cable on Wednesday nights) wrestling product and tryiong to change everything that's brought in the devoted audience it has so that it can try to chase a mythical 'casual fan' who is going to watch it if onyl they pushed Guy X instead or got rid of the people who conveniently are also the ones I don't like.
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Post by Lizuka #BLM on Oct 9, 2023 3:21:41 GMT -5
I'm someone who doesn't really watch a super huge amount of AEW or WWE these days, and while I kind of more emotionally care about the latter I don't want AEW to more closely resemble it by any means. Alternatives staying alternative is a good thing.
That said I am pretty glad that we're more or less at a point where, "They should do ____ more like WWE," is something you can just come out and say given how in the early days of the company bringing up anything WWE did better or saying that they shared any given problem would result in an endless cascade of, "Um, no, actually, that isn't really your opinion, WWE just broke your taste," horseshit.
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Legion
Fry's dog Seymour
Amy Pond's #1 fan
Hail Hydra!
Posts: 23,541
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Post by Legion on Oct 9, 2023 5:11:53 GMT -5
I still dont think they help themselves with the way they introduce new talent and talent from Japan.
There is the assumption people will know them, many people likely dont. AEW needs to get better not only at advertising events, but advertising who these people are.
Just chucking them out there and having commentary tell you they are a big deal isnt enough.
It then stands to reason those people dont draw - not enough people know, or care, who they are
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Post by rajaah on Oct 9, 2023 9:34:41 GMT -5
Why not do some smaller arenas but make sure they at least have some interesting looks to them. Like Hammerstein or Dailys Place? Half the place being full reminds me of some Impact stuff when they were trying to go against WWE live on Mondays. This. Full smaller arenas look better on TV than half-full larger arenas. Hammerstein in NYC is relatively expensive to run, and they haven't had any issues drawing in NYC. However just for the visual it would be nice to see an episode emanate from there. Lowell Memorial Auditorium in MA is another good one. If I'm thinking of the right place. I think WWF Final Four in early 97 was there, or one of the RAWs around it. Has a bit of a Hammerstein flavor to it. Other than those, any small to mid size arena that fits 5000 or so at capacity would look fine on TV if full. Sometimes the brain doesn't even register the difference between a 5000 seat arena and a 20000 seat arena while watching. Either way I'd love to get rid of the interminable "lol look at the empty sections!" social media posts that seem to be clogging up everything now. The comments of every single one are like "Guess they shouldn't have gotten rid of Punk huh?" when this was just as much of an issue 2 months ago. Like I said, interminable. I'd make it my goal to book venues that don't have a single empty seat, then move back up to larger ones if the product catches fire (begins selling out quick again). |
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Post by rajaah on Oct 9, 2023 10:06:53 GMT -5
“eDgE foRGOt To rUN tO tHe OThEr sIDe of tHE StAGe” has rapidly become the wrestling equivalent of r/onejoke and I’m not sure I’ve ever hated anything quite as much in my entire wrestling fandom. Had to look this up because I didn't know what it was a reference to. Welp, that's a few minutes of Reddit and social media negativity that I'll never get back. I swear, it's like a large contingency of online "fans" just look for things about AEW to mock. Criticism is one thing, mockery is annoying. |
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Fade
Patti Mayonnaise
Posts: 38,661
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Post by Fade on Oct 9, 2023 11:32:27 GMT -5
I'm someone who doesn't really watch a super huge amount of AEW or WWE these days, and while I kind of more emotionally care about the latter I don't want AEW to more closely resemble it by any means. Alternatives staying alternative is a good thing. That said I am pretty glad that we're more or less at a point where, "They should do ____ more like WWE," is something you can just come out and say given how in the early days of the company bringing up anything WWE did better or saying that they shared any given problem would result in an endless cascade of, "Um, no, actually, that isn't really your opinion, WWE just broke your taste," horseshit. They’ve absolutely been focusing on characters and storytelling the last few months, & i remember hearing a lot of internet chatter prior to that, as to the lack of it. That’s something “borrowed from wwe” that pays dividends. It’s a hard line to walk because AEW absolutely has to be AEW. An alternative is an alternative for a reason. Case in point, I was bitching weeks/months ago about how promos/storylines weren’t consecutively leading to developments, someone brought up AEW tends to do that with the matches themselves. Not my cup of tea, but I can’t deny aew does that well, and they should absolutely not stop doing that, because anything “the alternative” can do better, they absolutely should. Honestly, I think that’s part of the issue. they’re still trying to find their identity. |
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