AEW’s 2024 revenue I’ve estimated at $168 million, up from $154 million in 2023, an increase driven entirely by media rights fees. Contractual escalators in AEW’s Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) deal, standard in media agreements, likely ensure higher payments despite viewership declines. The increase also reflects a full year of Collision programming, compared to its partial-year introduction in 2023.

While media revenue grew, AEW’s live events and consumer product sales likely declined, offsetting some of that gain. WrestleTix data shows a clear drop in ticket demand for 2024, both in total and average attendance.

AEW likely remained unprofitable in 2024, as it has been since its inception in 2019. However, with its renewed WBD deal and increased media rights fees, profitability could be within reach as early as this year.

In addition to an increase in media revenue from guaranteed contracts, I estimate that pay-per-view revenue also increased, although slightly.

The addition of a ninth annual pay-per-view event (Dynasty) reinforced lessons of wrestling’s past, that moderately increasing the number of pay-per-view events offered per year results in greater revenue, even as the average sales per event may decrease. For 2024, I estimate — based on media reports and executive comments — that the average event sold about 129,000 buys, down from about 137,000 in 2023; 151,000 in 2022; and 155,000 in 2021. Nonetheless, total sales for the year I estimate increased in 2024 to around 1.16 million, from the earlier high point of around 1.10 million in 2023.

While media revenues carry the business, consumer interest has been down as indicated by attendance data estimated by WrestleTix.

Attendances for Dynamite and Collision were down year-over-year throughout 2024. The volume of events increased slightly in 2024, with 100 events, up from 95 in 2023.. Both Dynamite and Collision averages were down year-over-year in each quarter.

Data from WrestleTix indicates that total as well as average attendances are down. Total attendance for 2024 — including comps — was at 421,632 for the year, down from 552,150 in 2023. Average tickets distributed, lumping all event types together, was 4,259 in 2024, down from 5,812 in 2023.

Tickets to AEW’s most valuable events, its pay-per-views, were also down. Most pay-per-views in 2024 had lower attendance than the prior year. Revolution stands out as an exception, which our reporting confirmed drew a gate worth over $1 million, for Sting’s memorable retirement in Greensboro, North Carolina.

Consumer products business is harder to estimate as there aren’t many public indicators. However, lower attendance almost certainly entails lower venue merchandise sales. I believe the decline in consumer interest that’s apparent generally would also apply to eCommerce merchandise sales. And it’s notable that the prior year contained the release of AEW’s console game, Fight Forever. 2024 didn’t include any comparable launch or major product licensing activity to cause me to otherwise raise this revenue estimate for this segment. For those reasons, I estimated the segment at about $13 million for the year, down from the estimate of $22 million in the prior year.

WWE, for comparison, generated $1.398 billion in revenue for the year, according to TKO’s disclosures, a new annual high for the company.

Outlook & analysis

With domestic media rights fees likely guaranteed for the next three years, AEW’s financial future is relatively secure and annual profitability is in sight, probably in 2025.

For sake of simplicity, if I take for granted all other revenue streams, besides domestic media rights fees, stay flat for the company from 2025 through 2027, I expect AEW to generate around $244 million to $269 million in revenue in each of those years, which is more than my more aggressive estimates of the company’s expenses. And that’s the case whether you assume the average annual value of the new deal with WBD is $170 million (as reported by Sports Business Journal) or $185 million (as reported by Variety).

AEW continues to reflect the paradox we’ve noted before, much like WWE from roughly 2014 to 2021. That analogy is on a smaller scale in AEW’s case, but I see the comparison as highly relevant regardless. From 2014 to 2021, WWE’s popularity with fans declined, yet the company consistently set financial records. Content like Raw and Smackdown — or Dynamite and Collision in AEW’s case — remained popular enough to thrive on an overwhelming external tailwind: an increasingly fragmented and therefore competitive entertainment market where major distributors place immense value on the top-level live programming, regardless of the direction of that programming’s popularity, as long as it rises high above the rest of the market. Dynamite continues to do that and is the key to AEW’s viability. Collision, which delivers about half the audience of Dynamite, is supplemental.

AEW has clear opportunities for growth but continues to miss them due to undisciplined creative leadership, much like WWE in the later years of Vince McMahon’s tenure. Despite weakening demand for tickets and consumer products, AEW’s content nonetheless remains positioned strongly, though its long-term trajectory is less certain.

As long as Dynamite remains one of the top 100 shows in P18-49 on any given week, as it is now even while simulcast on streaming, AEW’s continued value beyond its current media deal seems likely. The three- to four-year term of its new WBD deal provides a real opportunity for the company to be profitable on an annual basis, and unless its TV viewership erodes significantly, AEW should continue to have value in the marketplace.

That said, WWE’s position in the late 2010s was more secure than AEW’s position today. While AEW’s core content stands high above the broader entertainment clutter, WWE was (and remains) a decades-old brand, deeply ingrained in entertainment culture. WWE was (and is) big enough to be nearly impossible to break; AEW’s path to viability, indefinitely into the future, I don’t view as such a guarantee.

The facts showing consumer interest in AEW has fallen are overwhelming and can’t be denied.

Rather than relying on more straightforward viewership data, and in the interest of giving AEW the strongest defense possible against its ratings decline, I look to more generous coverage viewership data, which accounts for the decline in cable network availability related to cord-cutting and cord-nevering. So note that data shown here is not the P18-49 rating you’re used to seeing in normal reports about ratings; those would be lower and those figures would show steeper declines.

It should be a concern for the company that — before the simulcast began on Max — that in Q3 and Q4 of 2024, Dynamite saw decreases in this metric, which cannot be dismissed with excuses about cable availability, as aggressive as 15% and 21%, respectively.

The comparisons for Collision, particularly in Q2 are less meaningful as 2023 had only two episodes in the quarter, including the debut which is the highest rating in the show’s history. Nonetheless, the Q3 and Q4 comparisons are both significantly negative.

Tony Khan’s leadership weaknesses have been evident for some time. His inability to resolve issues with Cody Rhodes and CM Punk sent both stars to WWE, where they’ve strengthened AEW’s top competitor. Meanwhile, AEW continues to fill its roster with talent and staff from WWE’s past era, diluting the alternative identity it once thrived on. Khan shows little indication that he recognizes these issues, let alone plans to address them. Without strategic adjustments, AEW risks stagnation, underutilizing its talent and drifting further from a distinct creative vision.

Social media fixation on negativity around AEW is unfortunate, though unsurprising, given how well it fuels engagement — an economic incentive that long predates any real decline in fan interest. Khan’s divisiveness plays a role, but the sheer volume of noise makes it hard to separate intelligent criticism from outdated nonsense or trolling. While much of the criticism is excessive or opportunistic, AEW’s real problems remain. Its identity has blurred. Its creative direction lacks clarity. And leadership has yet to show the ability to reverse course. Without meaningful change, AEW risks further diminishing its audience.

Additionally, an AEW on the decline will create — and arguably already has created — a problem with talent retention. A few years ago, AEW was the more exciting company for many wrestlers to work for, where their creative frustrations would be relieved. With WWE on the rise and AEW on the decline, that dynamic has reversed. AEW may further become but the stepping stone on the way to the big time that is WWE. AEW may become a company where stars, once they become big enough names, move on. It’s not unreasonable to imagine there could be a similar dynamic with staff retention, where the best office and backstage personnel eventually exit as well.

Rumors of a new weekly AEW show, Shockwave (which the company trademarked), landing on Fox or another national broadcaster have faded. The company also didn’t announce any new major product licensing projects in 2024, another sign that the company’s momentum may be stalling even as its financial future has become more secure.

Additionally, the notion that Ring of Honor would be integrated into AEW’s WBD media deal never materialized, despite Khan expressing willingness ahead of the renewal to re-brand ROH as “AEW Ring of Honor”. Instead, ROH continues to operate as a separate but closely associated Khan-owned entity, appearing to function as AEW’s unofficial developmental brand. It remains confined to a standalone streaming service, with little sign of broader strategic purpose beyond a few thousand streaming subscribers and quarterly pay-per-views.

To be clear, the AEW Dynamite’s media value remains strong and I believe is best reflected in the line chart above showing ranking data.

AEW’s media rights remain the company’s foundation, keeping it financially viable even as fan engagement declines. The new deal runs for three years, ending in 2027, with a one-year option to extend through 2028.

Wrestling fans view all matters of business through a wrestling lens, where fan popularity is the only key. A bigger question in the formula that will determine AEW’s future beyond its current deal is what the media economy looks like in 2027 and 2028, and whether AEW still commands a strong position in that environment.

The future of WBD, by far AEW’s most important business partner, is uncertain. CEO David Zaslav appears intent on merging the company, possibly with Comcast. While AEW’s fan popularity matters a lot, broader changes in media business will shape the wrestling companies’ fate just as much, if not more.

AEW would, of course, be best served to not just sustain but grow its audience and make its programming more indispensable, no matter how the media landscape evolves. When the next media rights negotiation arrives, AEW’s survival may not be in question — especially given the Khan family’s wealth and Tony Khan’s interest in running the company — but its relevance may be.