Report: AEW Business Has ‘Slipped’, WWE Has ‘Grown Tremendously’

WWE

An update has emerged on WWE and AEW business following WWE’s recent management change.

The fan sentiment on WWE has drastically changed over the last month, with Vince McMahon announcing his retirement on July 22, Stephanie McMahon and Nick Khan being named co-CEOs and Triple H taking over creative.

Per Dave Meltzer in the latest edition of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, WWE is currently doing really well on the business side of things, with a noticable increase in live show attendance.

Pointing out that while WWE has ‘grown tremendously’, AEW has slightly slipped, Meltzer wrote:

“The fortunes of WWE and AEW have gone in opposite direction in recent months.

“WWE is doing great business-wise, with Raw at its highest point of the year and live show attendance up across the board.

“AEW last week did its second lowest 18-49 number of the year and while live attendance was great in May and June, the last two months haven’t been as good and aside from New York, Toronto and Uncasville, CT, most cities are doing lukewarm.

“For much of the year, Dynamite was drawing larger paid crowds than Raw and just behind Smackdown. In the last two months the numbers have not been competitive. AEW hasn’t slipped that much, but has slipped, WWE has grown tremendously.

“Some will attribute this to Paul Levesque taking over from Vince McMahon, and that would be fair to a degree. Ratings for Raw have been up a lot. Smackdown hasn’t been up nearly as much although the past two weeks numbers with football moving the shows really aren’t indicative of where things really are with that show.

“But it does appear that swing fans who watch some but not all wrestling, but are open to all wrestling, are seeing Raw as the big show of the week, and Smackdown is not as hot and AEW has fallen, particularly with the audience that has carried it since its inception, men 35-49.

“Whether Raw being up and AEW being down is coincidental, or one being up is the key reason the other is down is a difficult question.

“But it was really coming right out of WrestleMania, and not the departure of Vince McMahon, where you could see the shift. McMahon leaving may have made it stronger but ticket sales up for one group and down for the other started before the Vince McMahon scandal.

“Absolutely the scandal helped WWE ratings for certain shows, and Raw is boosted by the fact people know they are going to get happenings on the show.”

WWE and AEW are both building to pay-per-view specials in early September, with the WWE Clash At The Castle premium live event airing from Cardiff, Wales on September 3, and All Out emanating from Chicago on September 4.

Check out the announced card for Clash At The Castle right here, and the lineup for All Out at this link.

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• business
• Vince McMahon
• AEW
• wwe

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