Dave comparing ticket sales to WCW 2000

[Fade is a CodyCryBaby]

"(AEW attendance) is not good. One of the things is like, there were a lot of weak advances in the last quarter, but they had a lot of the shows where they got late buys, whether it was bringing in Okada or Mistico, or having an MJF or Kenny Omega match, or just good local promotion, or lowering ticket prices, things like that.

"And so, I kind of got lulled into this sense of, 'okay the advances suck, but it's not that bad'. And it really wasn't that bad the last quarter, Well, now, it's that bad. And it looks worse.

"Wednesday's show, they're under 2,000. To me, under 4,000 for Dynamite is where it gets to be below so-so. 4,000 to me is fine for AEW. Under 4,000 not so great. Under 3,000, pretty bad. Under 2,000 is really bad. Especially when you're coming to a city once a year.

"They've got Tulsa coming up, they've never been to Tulsa, they're under 2,000 there as well. And then the last week, St Louis on Saturday, when I saw that number… St Louis is a historically great wrestling city, it's not like they come there often, and to do under 3,000 on a Saturday night, it's really not good at all.

"Another problem that they have is that every time they go back to a market, in more cases than not, the attendance goes down. There's always exceptions to every rule, but in more cases than not they go down. And it's like, okay, when you're at 4,000 and you're going down, not so great. When you're at 2,800 and you're going down in a major city, where are you headed?

"You're getting now to WCW 2000. And people hate when I use that term, but they're getting there. And that's a scary place to be.

"There's a lot of things that they could do, but they haven't. I know that Kosha Irby's in, and this is actually his job, his job is going to be to get this stuff up. And it's way too early to put any blame on him, he just got there.

"Even if you're the greatest promoter in the world, people are gonna buy more or less based on the product and the excitement of the product. WCW had Zane Bressloff in 2000 and they couldn't sell tickets because nobody wanted to buy tickets to the product, and with AEW, the number of people who wanna buy tickets to the product is… they'll buy the pay-per-views, they'll watch Wednesday night TV, but they're not going in any great numbers to the shows

www.f4wonline.com/podcasts/wrestling-observer-radio/wrestling-observer-radio-kevin-patrick-what-aew-could-learn-from-wwe-and-vice-versa-raw-report-more

Things that stuck out to me were A.) Ticket sales going down when they came back somewhere and B.) I didn’t even know WCW 2000 attendance was bad. Maybe it’s the nostalgia but I thought they were doing good houses up to their death.

[Mayonnaise]

I wish they'd stay in Daily's Place, they're always hot and it has a different look and feel which I think they need. Still trying to mimic WWE with the set ups and be different. I know it's not feasible but just a wish.

[Fade is a CodyCryBaby]

Jan 23, 2024 11:21:17 GMT -5 Mayonnaise said:

I wish they'd stay in Daily's Place, they're always hot and it has a different look and feel which I think they need. Still trying to mimic WWE with the set ups and be different. I know it's not feasible but just a wish.

Could be an inevitability.

On the recent Hook-Joe dynamite, I think the crowd may have been small but you could barely tell. Camera production was tight on the talent/product.

[kingoftheindies]

While I think some of the ticket concerns are overblown, I also think again it's fair to say AEW does want to improve that and bringing a COO in whose entire career is event promoting while letting one of the guys in charge of live events leave backs that up

[Mecca]

They booked some arena's that are to big, it would cost more to change them so it is what it is.

[kingoftheindies]

Jan 23, 2024 11:28:57 GMT -5 Mecca said:

They booked some arena's that are to big, it would cost more to change them so it is what it is.

SRS talked about it a few times a couple months ago cause the question came up. AEW decided that it was better for business to stay with bigger arenas for relationship purposes so when the product gets hot they still have a good relationship

But once again, there is clearly a reason why Rafael Morffi is gone and Kosha Irby was made COO.

[Mecca]

Also it's possible ticket sales are down because well our economy sucks f***ing balls. My extra income to do things like this has gone in the shitter.

[Zone Was Wrong]

Jan 23, 2024 11:34:35 GMT -5 Mecca said:

Also it's possible ticket sales are down because well our economy sucks f***ing balls. My extra income to do things like this has gone in the shitter.

That's something I think is a good discussion piece. AEW isn't nearly as well known or watched as WWE yes, but the smaller market share gets smaller when the economy goes down the drain. So while WWE is able to sell out bigger arenas, it's more the fact it has a larger market share which offers a bigger pool of people who can/will spend what money they have when WWE comes to town.

[Lizuka #BLM]

It's definitely a mix of a lot of different factors but it's probably mostly a mix of 1), being too expensive in the current climate, 2), poor advertising, and 3), overestimating the demand for AEW content when they started Collision and in the process doubled the amount of shows they were producing.

[Mecca]

Jan 23, 2024 11:38:41 GMT -5 Zone Was Wrong said:

Jan 23, 2024 11:34:35 GMT -5 Mecca said:

Also it's possible ticket sales are down because well our economy sucks f***ing balls. My extra income to do things like this has gone in the shitter.

That's something I think is a good discussion piece. AEW isn't nearly as well known or watched as WWE yes, but the smaller market share gets smaller when the economy goes down the drain. So while WWE is able to sell out bigger arenas, it's more the fact it has a larger market share which offers a bigger pool of people who can/will spend what money they have when WWE comes to town.

Also the WWE is targeting people who are late 20's early 30s that have kids who like wrestling...AEW's vibe is much more young adult...normally professionals with kids have more money than people that are 20.

[kingoftheindies]

Jan 23, 2024 11:39:29 GMT -5 Lizuka #BLM said:

It's definitely a mix of a lot of different factors but it's probably mostly a mix of 1), being too expensive in the current climate, 2), poor advertising, and 3), overestimating the demand for AEW content when they started Collision and in the process doubled the amount of shows they were producing.

I'd say the biggest reason is whether it was TK, Jarrett, Morffi, or someone else they completely misread the market in terms of pricing. Jimmy Van talked about it last year that many promoters he spoke to last year during the Canadian tour couldn't believe the prices AEW had for tickets and have heard the same thing in other cities

[Deleted]

They should IMO start looking to scale down to smaller arenas for shows IMO and only do ppvs for big arenas.

[Finish Uncle Muffin’s Story]

This is anecdotal, so don't hold me to this, but I think another potential issue is that like...you never know who you're going to see show up on a Dynamite. That's both a good and bad thing. Sometimes WWE overindexes on it too hard, but I still think AEW's not doing enough to be like "these are the core 10 major stars you will see wrestle on our show every week."

[dbsot]

Right now, some of them are bad (especially this week and last week's Dynamite). However, beyond January, things look better. Collision in Vancouver is almost at 6,000. Collision outdrew Dynamite last week. Granted, the name value was higher with Danielson, Moxley and Copeland.

AEW in Q4 2023 was actually up on Q4 2022.

They still need to do a better job across the board when it comes to promotion and pricing their tickets. A hot product will always help as well.

This is my own speculation, but I wonder if the arenas for January (probably February) were booked by Morffi before he left. The new guy might be (Irby) focusing on the Canada shows and beyond. We will have to see how the new guys does as we get closer to the summer.

["Evil Brood" Jackson Vanik]

It's always going to be the case that there's a number of factors ranging from the product to the live experience to the economy, etc. Dave and Bryan's suggestions could help but they won't drastically change anything over night. And there's no magic fix. Right now they're running new markets in smaller arenas and not seeing it pay off in any way. And you can't run arenas that are too small because you have to be able to load your production in and set it up. WBD expects high production values and you can't run in TNA/MLW size arenas and get that. And I imagine the difference in rent between a medium to large size arena is negligible to their bottom line.

What is unique here is that when WCW saw their live gates crash in 2000, you also saw their ratings and PPV buys follow similar patterns. People in general were watching a lot less and unwilling to spend money on the product. AEW has maintained a strong PPV business and Dynamite usually does well on Wednesdays and Collision has performed well on a lot of weeks given the sports competition. So they have fans who are willing to watch and plenty who are willing to buy PPVs. And for big shows like Worlds End, Revolution, etc. - people are willing to pay to attend. But the weekly shows which are generally well received face more of an uphill battle. So in some ways I see where Dave is coming from with the comparison but I don't think people should take that to mean they're in a similar financial state as WCW in 2000. They're very different.

[Kalmia]

Jan 23, 2024 11:51:45 GMT -5 Finish Uncle Muffin’s Story said:

This is anecdotal, so don't hold me to this, but I think another potential issue is that like...you never know who you're going to see show up on a Dynamite. That's both a good and bad thing. Sometimes WWE overindexes on it too hard, but I still think AEW's not doing enough to be like "these are the core 10 major stars you will see wrestle on our show every week."

Meltzer says as much in the quote. That adding guys like Omega or MJF push sales because it's a guarantee they'll be there and you'll get a decent match/segment out of them.

[dbsot]

Jan 23, 2024 11:51:45 GMT -5 Finish Uncle Muffin’s Story said:

This is anecdotal, so don't hold me to this, but I think another potential issue is that like...you never know who you're going to see show up on a Dynamite. That's both a good and bad thing. Sometimes WWE overindexes on it too hard, but I still think AEW's not doing enough to be like "these are the core 10 major stars you will see wrestle on our show every week."

This is why there was an increase in Q4. The Continental Classic let the audience know exactly who was going to be wrestling on each show. Even though not everyone in the tournament was a star, you knew that you were getting great matches and continual story development from week to week. TK has a bad habit of waiting until the day before a show to announce matches. He may announce a main event a week in advance, but the rest of the card is filled out late. To his credit, TK did announce most of the card for tomorrow's show in advance. Granted, it was announced on the less viewed shows (Rampage/Collision). 

I also think AEW should have a dark match after each show with some top draws. It should be advertised as soon as tickets go on sale. Something like BCC vs BCG. A safe match that the crowd can enjoy. They could even have hometown wrestlers added to pop the crowd. Let the wrestlers have some fun and get a babyfaces win. Then the babyfaces cut a nice promo thanking the crowd and lead them into the Rampage tapings. WWE has done this for years and it is nice thing to ensure the people paying their money see some of the bigger names.

[LiamMcDuggle]

They are booking for a niche audience.

[raymondo316]

This coming Saturdays show in Bossier City is looking brutal

I know they're going against the rumble, so this show was always going to be a tough sell, but running a city with a population of 62 thousand was certainly a strange choice.

[pinja]

Dave says it's Tulsa Doom.