Wrestling Thread 7: FTR Baldhausen • Page 883

Bray should come back as Elias

 

I do not care for wwe one bit.

The moron stuff is right tho

 

What AEW needs to do to gain an audience now has nothing to do with the wrestling or the content. It’s about making it easier to view the product.

First they need an option to view next day Dynamite and Rampage without a cable subscription. I think the TNT or TBS app is still the only place where you can stream next day but they still want a cable subscription. If next day shows were on Hulu or HBOMax, they would automatically get more eyes on the product just for the fact that cord cutters are a huge portion of that demo. It may seem counter productive to try to boost ratings, but if you can hook people through other means it increases the chance they might sign up for Sling or whatever to watch live.

The ppvs have to be cheaper. When the competition has every ppv they have ever done for 5 bucks a month plus episodes of the office, you have to bring your price down. The only affordable option for your deluxe shows can’t be jumping through VPNs and shit. Obviously streaming on an app like HBO would be ideal, but just knocking the price to 20 or 25 a pop would be a boost for the company.

I have a ton of other thoughts, but to me those two things are currently their biggest barriers of entry.

 

The price of ppvs definitely for aew need to change, paying 60 bucks for a wrestling ppv in 2022 is absolute bullshit.

 

I’ve only seen maybe two aew ppvs, make it affordable.

 

it's incredibly easy to just stream their ppvs man, why would you pay for one

 

Oh you know i like to watch with a quality picture and without interruptions due to shitty streams.

 

find a good stream then? can't imagine paying 60 bucks for a wrestling show today

 

I thought it was $50

 

that's still way too much in the year of our lord 2022

 

Maybe it was 50, either way it’s too damn expensive.

 

Gaining viewership happens in slow increments, verryyyy slow, people expect half a million more people watching if AEW makes the right moves dor 2 straight months.

doesn’t work that way.

also these aren’t original thoughts at all by me, Bryan Alvarez has talked about this for years and has been all over wrestling TV ratings for at least 25 years.


Just keep things good for a long/consistent period, and get maybe a more solid time slot for programming other than Dynamite and you are well on your way. During that long, consistent period you just hope for something to catch fire.

 

Finding a good IPTV that includes PPV (save a lot of $ per month by cutting cable) as well as torrents (if you dont mind not watching live) are great options.

 

It’s pretty fascinating to me that people are not impressed by the viewership Dynamite pulls already. A lot of naive people imo

 

Agree with you completely here. At or around a million a week is huge in 2022, especially only being around a few years.

 

Honestly I’m very impressed with AEW. I did not expect them to last when it was announced. Also didn’t expect half the stuff that happened to WWE too though

 

The ceiling that exists regarding their viewership has almost nothing to do with them lol. Wrestling just ain't big business like it used to be and the gap between WWE and them are legacy viewers and 5-year-olds primarily lol

If they start making major changes to how they do things trying to pop the ratings it's only going to end poorly. Just make good shows.

The thing that could help the most that is entirely in their control however is having an actual women's division and not a "here's where i want people to go to the bathroom" segment every week

 

Even if AEW stays around the viewership it has now for the next few years, it’s still a wide success.

TNA did some pretty big numbers looking back when they were on spike (I think the highest they ever did was over 2 million) but it was a different time and they had lots of peaks and valleys

there’s gonna be a massive bidding war on AEW when they’re due for a new tv deal

 

It’s insane to me that people complain about $50 for a PPV. It’s 2022. That’s not that expensive. Any other live PPV product is usually more expensive. Hell Impact charges $40 for their PPV’s. I’ve been to indie shows where tickets are much more expensive that than $50. There’s only 4 a year and they are usually terrific 4-5 hour shows. Comparing them to WWE is insane because it’s apples and oranges. WWE gets paid millions by NBC and Saudi to subsidize their shows.

 

No 50 bucks is ridiculous, especially with the times we are in right now with the economy. Tony is a billionaire, you mean to tell me he can’t budge ?

 

Who the fuck has bought an Impact PPV since at least 2011?

 

Other than the price of ppvs and how the women are booked I have no issue with aew.

 

If you can’t afford to pay $50 for a show, Tony isn’t the one to blame.

 

Lol I’ve bought multiple. Impact has been quite good actually once Anthem took over.