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On the latest edition of Wrestlenomics Radio, Brandon Thurston sat down with former Wrestlenomics host and AEW SVP “Mookie” Chris Harrington to talk about the wrestling business today.

As noted in many past editions of Wrestlenomics Radio and on this website, wider TV viewership has been down over the past several years. However, TV and media rights values continue to increase, with WWE and AEW signing big deals with top networks. AEW’s growing popularity suggests they may sign a stronger deal when their current agreement is renegotiated. But would this have any bearing on WWE’s TV rights deals? Harrington gave his insight.

“Definitely being able to say, ‘Hey, AEW would not have gotten into this business if we didn’t see the rights that WWE was commanding’ and be able to say, ‘Oh, there’s some investment going on here, and there’s still probably an opportunity for more players in this marketplace, and there’s money that can be spent, and we will be an economical and we believe creatively viable choice, alternative, investment, whatever, to also join this,’ so that was important to us,” Harrington explained. “When you’re talking about ‘what what should I worry about,’ just like what we were talking about earlier, NFT’s wasn’t a thing three years ago, but they’re a thing now.

“So you’ve got to be thinking a lot about revenue streams. Maybe it’s media rights but media rights is a very particular bucket because you could also say it’s TV advertising, and that’s different than media rights. It could be about OTT money, it could be about SVOD, or AVOD, or getting involved in FAST.

“And not just media revenue but just the idea that, ‘Yes, right now, it’s networks paying a lot of money for the rights for a dealer, or Peacock or someone paying the rights for a library, along with special events. We’re still in the pay-per-view business. I work very hard on the pay-per-view side, and that’s the four events we’re doing a year.

“We just had our most successful event ever (All Out), that’s no secret. I’m monetizing this content in a very discrete way, at a very discrete time and maybe that’s what the future is like but maybe there’s some other way that you have that financial transaction so that you can still get value from that event, but it’s in some other way.”

The re-negotiation period for WWE and AEW is expected to be around 2023. Thurston asked Harrington why would a TV network executive pay a certain amount for WWE Raw and SmackDown compared to AEW Dynamite and Rampage’s performance.

“I have no idea. I never worked for a TV network,” Harrington noted.

“You talk to them,” Thurston pointed out.

“I do, but I talk to them from my side,” Harrington said. “I don’t know how they think about it on their side. I don’t know how they position their choices. Do they really say, ‘Oh, I’m deciding whether or not to buy this wrestling show or that wrestling show?’ I would say more they’re deciding ‘what do I program? What does that audience that program bring? How much does it cost for us to be involved with this?

“Next year, AEW Dynamite will move to TBS and AEW Rampage will stay on TNT, that’s because when you think of your slate of times, when you plant a flag to say, this show’s gonna be on at this time, 52 weeks a year, that’s a big investment from a programming standpoint, and I don’t think that anyone says, ‘Oh, I’m choosing my wrestling program to put on here.’ They’re just choosing what are they going to program in a steady slot for these periods of time, and so for instance, WarnerMedia made an investment in hockey rights.

“They’d made the choice to bring in hockey rights as part of what they think they want to put on their programming, but that means they have to be very careful then about what they’re thinking is their portfolio. A lot of times it’s not so much, ‘Hey, I want wrestling. I don’t want wrestling,’ as much as what does this [wrestling program] look like compared to everything else that I’m doing, and what’s [the network’s] vision?

“When MTV plays Ridiculousness, for 23 hours a day, there’s a vision there. There’s a reason they’re doing that, but also, the one hour that they’re not playing that, you don’t expect them to put on Oprah. It’s got to be in line with what the rest of the network is doing and what they carve that to be.”

Excerpts from Wrestlenomics Radio were edited for clarity.

Photo by All Elite Wrestling.

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On the latest edition of Wrestlenomics Radio, Brandon Thurston and Chris Gullo discussed the changes to WWE NXT in NXT 2.0. They played a clip from a video from Mick Foley out out titled “WWE: we’ve got a problem” where Foley pointed out the creative issues with WWE and the lack of cohesion between NXT and main roster WWE.

Thurston then referenced a line from Vince McMahon on the Q2 earnings call, said in response to the cuts WWE have made and CM Punk joining AEW. McMahon said, “I’m not so sure what their investments are as far as their (AEW’s) talent is concerned… but perhaps we can give them some more.” Thurston and Gullo broke down the statement as well as how talent are valued in WWE and AEW.

Thurston: “I feel sort of ridiculous that we’re trying to unpack such a small sentence. This is not some grand statement or speech that he gave. This is just one sentence, and we’re trying to read quite a bit into this, but on the other hand, we get so little in terms of what Vince really thinks he does. He speaks publicly so little, but is there any insight we can get from this?

“Along with some other moves that they’ve made recently, to me, that’s doubling down. All the talent that they’re cutting, cutting even people Braun Strowman. I’m thinking too about what Nick Khan said to Ariel Helwani, about indie wrestlers, if you will. If people move on, that’s fine by them, which is just great corporate speak to make it sound like they’re doing somebody a favor by cutting, but in some cases, they are, as far as their careers go.

“I think what we’re seeing happen is this bifurcating, that’s a Chris Harrington word, of maybe wrestling audiences, definitely two different creative visions of what their product is. WWE not even willing to accept that they’re in the wrestling business. AEW embracing that they’re in the wrestling business. Those visions are very different.

“They have different visions of what they do creatively, and they have different visions of what talent they value. They kind of already did in the first place, but I think we’re seeing a doubling down on that in WWE’s case.

“Maybe part of that is this sort of you can’t quit, you’re fired kind of thing. ‘Oh, these indie people are leaving us? Adam Cole is going to pass us up, and CM Punk was not interested in dealing with us. Apparently, we had some discussions with him, and we couldn’t get Bryan Danielson to stay. Jon Moxley wanted to leave a few years ago, and he left, wouldn’t even look at his deal, wouldn’t even look at what the money was that we were offering him.’

Gullo: “Christian. You got to add Christian not wanting to really pursue a deal with them.”

Thurston: “Maybe it’s sort of ‘I’m starting to feel rejected. So rather than allow people to reject me, I’m going to preemptively reject them,’ and I think we’re seeing maybe the next step is deals are coming up around the end of the year for three other wrestlers, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn and Johnny Gargano, who, I would guess, are not going to re-sign with this company when when their deals are up.

“And these are three wrestlers who were big time indie wrestlers before they came to WWE, and you combine that with will if not wrestlers, not people who have already been in the wrestling business and have already been on, some level, relatively speaking, successful wrestlers, then what kind of talent are they going to sign? Maybe it’s more of the Gable Steveson types, on the high end. I don’t know how often you can sign a gold medalist, but that seems to be their idea.

“Obviously, we see that in the repackaging of NXT, NXT 2.0. Now, they just put the title on Tommaso Ciampa, who’s a big indie wrestler, but maybe that’s part of a transition into a future of WWE talent development that’s more about people who have athletic backgrounds, perhaps. Especially on the women’s side, maybe they’re fitness models but not necessarily independent wrestlers. I know Triple H, at the Las Vegas tryout said that it’s not a negative if they have indie experience. I’m not so sure. Maybe Triple H feels that way.

“It’s evident, through what NXT has put out, that Paul Levesque has a different creative vision than Vince McMahon about what pro wrestling can be creatively, and to Paul Levesque, I don’t think it’s a negative that you have independent wrestling experience. I think around 2014 he had a change of mind, at least he did relative to what he was willing to say publicly. I think what he’s willing to say publicly, as much as anybody, is not necessarily what he believes genuinely, and I don’t know what he believes genuinely.

“But in the case of Vince McMahon, I know Vince is very much just not aware of what’s going on in wrestling beyond his company, but I do wonder when or if he learns that somebody has an independent wrestling background or has any sort of wrestling background outside of the company, whether that becomes a negative to him and not a totally prohibitive negative but a negative. There are other things that can outweigh that.

“This is one thing we can say in WWE’s favor here, I think they do value diversity of people from a variety of backgrounds. That’s something that AEW needs to work on, in terms of having stars who are not just white guys. You’ve got CM Punk, that’s a big deal. You’ve got Bryan Danielson and Adam Cole, and this is a huge deal for the company, but in the future, they really have to look at building people from more diverse backgrounds.”

Excerpts from Wrestlenomics Radio were edited for clarity.

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Summerslam 2021 delivered huge numbers for WWE. In its press release, WWE touts Summerslam as “the most-viewed and highest-grossing Summerslam in the company’s history.”

On the latest edition of Wrestlenomics Radio, Brandon Thurston and Chris Gullo analyzed the press release and examined the context of the numbers WWE has released. The following bullet points were looked at on Wrestlenomics Radio:

– More people watched Saturday’s event live across Peacock and WWE Network than any other SummerSlam in the company’s history. The seven-figure global audience marked a 55% increase over 2020 and a 29% increase over 2019.

– The sellout crowd of 51,326 broke SummerSlam records for indoor attendance and gate receipts. With tickets purchased by fans from all 50 U.S. states, Saturday’s live gate was more than four times greater than the last SummerSlam held with fans in attendance in 2019.
Merchandise sales posted an increase of 155% over 2019.

– SummerSlam set a new sponsorship record, growing by 25% vs. 2019 and 18% vs. 2020.

– With more than four million views, Brock Lesnar’s return became WWE’s most-watched Instagram video of all time – surpassing the video of John Cena’s return at WWE Money in the Bank. In total, SummerSlam videos generated more than one billion views across all WWE social platforms during the week.

Thurston went point by point through the press release on Wrestlenomics Radio. He gave more detail and and context to the numbers that WWE have released.

“‘The most watched Summerslam in the company’s history,’ which makes some sense,” Thurston stated. “What we gather from this too is the cynicism that the WWE Network is now being viewed less because they moved from the standalone WWE Network in the U.S. to Peacock, not the case. As we know, the standalone WWE Network had about 1.2 million subscribers. In March this year, the standalone WWE Network in the U.S. shut down, and now everybody’s been encouraged to sign up for Peacock. There was no automatic transition, but you were encouraged and marketed to. Nonetheless, there’s more people watching Summerslam than ever. I don’t doubt the veracity of this.

“There’s some truth to the hype that this enhanced reach of Peacock over WWE’s direct-to-consumer network is paying off, is producing some results. That said, there’s some interesting fact to get out of this where it says, ‘The seven-figure global audience,’ so that just means there’s somewhere in excess of a million viewers, and who knows if that means average throughout or just checked out at least 10 seconds of it, but anyway, ‘marked a 55% increase over last year,’ which was on the WWE Network standalone, ‘and a 29% increase over 2019,’ which means that 2020 was down from 2019. 2020 is a COVID year with Braun Strowman and Bray Wyatt with Roman Reigns running in at the end, finally returning. You got John Cena and Roman Reigns here, bigger match.

“John Cena had not wrestled since the Wrestlemania at the Performance Center [in April 2020]. It had been over a year since John Cena wrestled in WWE, and so I think that that means something. The 2019 Summerslam was at least in front of a live audience, and it certainly doesn’t dispute the notion that in 2019 to 2020, there was less interest in WWE. Whether you want to discount that because of COVID or not, it’s just two data points without true values here but with relative values in terms of percent.

“But maybe there was some increased interest, and I think we saw that too when Nick Khan disclosed a similar comparison using percentage changes from year to year when he discussed the Money In The Bank difference in viewership, which was up in this year 2021 as well because now they’re on Peacock and apparently that really does result in more people watching these WWE PPVs.”

Thurston then moved to the next bullet point that regards Summerslam attendance. Wrestle Tix reported that the estimated capacity for Allegiant Stadium was over 46,000. However, WWE reported a much larger number, and Thurston noted what Nick Khan had to say about Summerslam attendance.

“A sold out crowd of 51,326,” Thurston continued. “In the last couple of days before Summerslam and there could have been some sales, I’m sure there were some sales on the last couple of days, but Nick Khan said in print, in Variety and to Ariel Helwani for BT Sport that the paid ticket sales were over 45,000. Sounds pretty close to what Wrestle Tix found in their analysis of Ticketmaster. 45,000 is the paid. Sure, everybody exaggerates their attendance.

“People get cantankerous about it, though, when it comes to wrestling because wrestling’s a work, and this is the only objective measurement that we have of success. We can’t look up how many touchdown passes Roman Reigns has thrown. We can look up, though, the attendance or at least we can look at what Wrestle Tix, for example, reports what the attendance or what the tickets distributed count is. And when we see a number that doesn’t reflect what was possible, based on the ticket map, it’s worth talking about.”

Thurston went through the final bullet points. He explained that while the numbers for merchandise, sponsorships and video views may sound impressive, the whole story is still missing.

“Merchandise sales increased 155%. This is probably not venue merge per capita, right?” Thurston questioned. “This is an audience of 45,000 people compared to 2019 in the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. We’ve got probably well over two times the audience so maybe that’s what’s happening there. It’s not clear if this is a venue merge per capita number or if this is a revenue comparison, if you see what I’m saying there. It’s possible that the venue merch per capita was down from that event, but the revenue was up just by sheer volume of customers that may have made a purchase.

“Summerslam sets a new sponsorship record growing by 25% vs. 2019 and 18% vs. 2020, and I think that’s WWE’s business brand, which is pretty good and going in the right direction. WWE’s business brand is becoming more advertiser and business partner friendly, even while WWE is not a great consumer brand, in my view. It is becoming a stronger business brand, and that bears out here in the ad revenue, the sponsorship revenue that they were able to get here. It probably helps too that you’ve got a bigger audience. You’re on Peacock now, and you can tell these potential advertisers that we’ve got a track record now.

“We can look back at Money In The Bank that we had earlier this year and see how much viewership was up vs. when we were on the standalone network. Now we’re on Peacock. The reach is bigger, the audience is bigger and it probably helps your ability to sell advertising, even though advertising is probably sold so far in advance. I’m not sure how this is all working out on streaming, but a genuine positive for WWE. Video views, who knows what context to put that in. It’s in front of such a tailwind. Social media viewing, it’s hard to get an idea of what a true index would be and what true great numbers are, but they did a bunch of billion video views and who knows how many of them were even monetized? Well, some of them were through YouTube, certainly. Maybe some others on other platforms were but hard to say.”

Excerpts from Wrestlenomics Radio were edited for clarity.

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On the latest edition of Wrestlenomics Radio, Brandon Thurston and Chris Gullo discussed CM Punk’s return to pro wrestling on AEW Rampage. Punk is set to make his in-ring return against Darby Allin at All Out on September 5. Thurston discussed on the podcast what Punk symbolizes for fans.

“I think there’s a lot to unpack as far as CM Punk being a symbol for the discontent that wrestling fans have felt, especially in the time between now and when he left WWE in early 2014,” Thurston said. “So much has happened, and it’s been really a whole era since his exit and return to pro wrestling, but it sort of bookends this era of professional wrestling that began in 2014, the beginning of the WWE Network era and this other era here where AEW continues to do some really interesting stuff.

“The story of the business of pro wrestling, the most interesting story to me, and I think to a lot of people, judging by what our audience reacts to here, is the story of AEW vs. WWE, even though they are on dramatically different scales in many ways. I think what Punk meant as a symbol to people is the frustration that fans felt, and secondarily, a lot of the unfairness and the issues that WWE has with workers rights, if you will, in terms of the classification of wrestlers as independent contractors, some of the medical treatment that he had that he was unhappy with.”

Despite the discontent fans have for WWE’s core product, many defenders will point out that WWE continues to make record profits. Thurston explained why this dichotomy exists.

“If you go back and listen to the Art of Wrestling podcast that [Punk] did [in November 2014], it’s really just an amazing highlight reel of all of the issues and complaints that fans and wrestlers have and would more so publicly have in the years to come, and I think part of the reason why there’s an additional interest in the AEW vs. WWE story, is the fan discontent, but also, at the same time, WWE has made more and more money while putting out a product that many people feel is worse and worse,” Thurston explained.

“I occasionally have people who, when I dare to have an opinion about the WWE product, which I think is ultimately important to our topic when we discuss the business of pro wrestling, the quality of product matters, and people will tell me, ‘Well, if you think it’s so bad, look at your spreadsheets, pal. They’re making more and more money. So what are you talking about?’ The reason WWE is making more and more money is largely for external reasons.

“There’s some internal things happening on the corporate side, like what Nick Khan is doing to help them make incrementally more revenue. He’s facilitating good media deals for the company and already has, but that’s despite the quality of WWE’s content, not because of it, and WWE’s media deals, I believe, would be even more valuable if the quality of their content was better, which I think it easily can be.”

On a previous edition of Wrestlenomics Radio, Gullo and Thurston discussed the business effect Punk could have for AEW. Thurston added to that point on this week’s Wrestlenomics Radio as he talked about what Punk’s pro wrestling return symbolizes from a business point of view.

“If you watched AEW Rampage on Friday night and then you sampled the ‘epic’ WWE SummerSlam the following night, it’s quite a contrast,” Thurston pointed out. “The reason why WWE’s making more money over time is because of the external media economy, that it is fortunate to find itself in. Live sports content has become exceedingly valuable in this media environment in a way that it was not in prior eras, and WWE is still popular enough, in fairness to them, they are still popular enough to justify those fees, but I think those fees could be much higher.

“Punk’s return sort of symbolizes excitement for fans and the story about whether WWE is going to get even stronger competition or if a competitor is going to exceed WWE in popularity in some ways in the future. It feels like we’re getting closer to that time, and you’ve got, in many ways, a spiritual leader, like CM Punk, coming back to join the opposing team.”

Excerpts from Wrestlenomics Radio were edited for clarity.

Header image courtesy of All Elite Wrestling

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On the latest edition of Wrestlenomics Radio, Brandon Thurston and Chris Gullo went into detail on the recent WWE NXT cuts made on Friday. It was reported by Dave Meltzer on Wrestling Observer Radio that these cuts were led by Vince McMahon, with support from Bruce Prichard and John Laurinaitis. The moves are an effort to revert NXT back into a developmental brand.

In 2014, Paul Levesque (Triple H) led NXT to become a prominent third brand away from the earlier reality series origins of the show. Thurston went into detail on this week’s Wrestlenomics Radio on NXT’s new deal with USA Network.

“Let’s talk about what’s causing this. Every wrestling fan wants to talk about AEW vs. WWE and the fact that AEW beat NXT consistently in the ratings, in the Wednesday Night War, almost every time in terms of key demo viewership [viewers aged 18-49] and most of the time in terms of total viewership in the 70 some odd weeks that those programs ran head to head from late 2019 to April 2021,” Thurston said. “I think that’s probably part of the story and part of the perception in Vince McMahon’s mind, and by the way [WWE’s repeated public message is that], ‘they’re only focused on themselves,’ but I don’t believe that.

“I believe WWE cares about what AEW is doing, to a significant extent. There’s that, but I think what’s as big a piece is what happened earlier this year in March, where we got this press release. NXT had a two-year deal that started in fall 2019 to be on the USA Network. USA Network’s parent obviously is NBC Universal, and that deal is coming to an end this fall in two months.

“They renewed, WWE announced on March 30 that they’ve signed a multi-year extension. Now, we don’t know how long it is, but it’s multi-year, so at least two years, and this is when they also announced that WWE would move from Wednesday to Tuesday, and that began on April 13.”

Thurston continued as he discussed NXT’s move from the WWE Network to the USA Network. He examined WWE’s efforts to make NXT into a third rights brand and compares NXT’s financials to that of Raw, SmackDown and AEW.

“We never got an idea of what WWE really got in terms of TV rights fees from NBCU for NXT,” Thurston noted. “Of course, NXT was on the WWE Network. It was essentially the flagship show for the WWE Network for the first several years in the pre-Peacock era, and they decided to move it away from being essentially an exclusive Network show.

“Yes, it was on Hulu too but moving away from the Network to be on the USA Network. There was some worry from stock analysts, media analysts and investor types. ‘Why are you taking content that’s exclusive or almost exclusive to the Network and putting it on television when you’re trying to grow Network subs.’ And I think the media analysts who aren’t inundated in the wrestling industry every day probably didn’t appreciate the extent to which WWE wanted to compete head-to-head with AEW and sort of stamp out AEW’s progress before it got too far, but the public message, and I think there’s some legitimacy to this, was that maybe NXT could grow into this third media rights brand, in addition to Raw and SmackDown.

“Raw is getting $265 million a year from NBCU, that’s just in the U.S. SmackDown is getting $205 million from Fox. WWE in 2020 made over $500 million, more than half of its revenue from Raw and SmackDown rights fees. To an extent, NXT is bundled in there too, but if you took NXT out, it would be a minimal difference. So did NXT turn into this media rights brand? When the move was announced in 2019, there was speculation from stock analysts who cover WWE that the NXT deal to go to USA was worth maybe $50 million a year, early estimates were $100 million a year.

“We don’t know how much it was really worth, and we don’t know if it’s even all guaranteed or if it’s to a great degree, an ad revenue share, but my current belief is that it’s worth well less than what AEW getting from Turner, which is $44 million a year on an average annual basis. I believe it’s something probably closer in the neighborhood to $20 million a year. That’s what I believe about the first term, which is a two-year term.”

Thurston discussed WWE’s attitude towards NXT’s deal with USA Network. He explained what it meant to WWE, based on WWE’s public statements about it and the market’s reaction to it.

“Again, that first term is coming to an end this September, and the new deal will go into effect,” Thurston said. “They announced the new deal this past March, and was it an upgrade? Well, the stock price didn’t move when this deal was announced. The market didn’t feel like it was a big deal, and if this is a $50 million deal or $100 million deal on an average annual basis, that would be a big deal. That would be along the lines of WWE’s second biggest global TV deal, which is India, $50 million a year they get from Sony in India.

“If WWE is really getting $50 million, or something in that neighborhood, for NXT on USA Network, I would think the stock market would respond, but the stock market didn’t respond in March when this deal was announced or in early April when the stock market had the opportunity to react. And then we had the Q1 call on April 22. Stephen Cahall from Wells Fargo asked Kristina Salen about it.

“Basically, what I read this to be saying is that whatever the NXT deal was worth, the new deal was not a surprise to them. Or the value is too small to even really affect their financial guidance. The NXT deal, number one, was not a surprise to them.

“If it was a really great deal, they wouldn’t report a number on these earnings calls or in the press release, but they could have at least, if it was a great number, celebrated it in some way or given some indication about how happy they were about it. I know she’s happy saying, ‘We’re really pleased with that result,’ but it wasn’t a highlight in the press release.

“It only came up because an analyst asked about it, naturally, because NXT rights are something that has been hyped in the past. They justified putting it on the USA Network with the idea that they would be able to grow this third brand as a major media rights producer. We didn’t get any sort of hype. It’s not leaked to the Hollywood Reporter or to Sports Business Journal, that this is a big deal. If this was a big deal, something like that might happen, but it didn’t.”

Thurston then discussed what this all means for NXT now. He talked about NXT’s business performance over these past two years.

“Yes, NXT did not win the Wednesday Night War. AEW did, and NXT did not transform itself into just being some hybrid version of developmental and good content for the WWE Network into being, whatever value that has, this real tangible value of producing dozens of millions of dollars in media rights every year,” Thurston explained. “That’s not happening.

“NXT did not turn into this third media rights brand, yet it’s still on the USA Network. It’s probably producing some money. I would guess somewhere around $20 million a year. It doesn’t sound like it got a major upgrade and I think that’s sort of the financial, tangible, quantifiable, if you want to call it, failure. NXT didn’t meet those expectations.”

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On the latest edition of Wrestlenomics Radio, Brandon Thurston and Chris Gullo discussed AEW running another Chicago show, this time at the United Center on August 20 for the second episode of Rampage. The event sold over 10,000 seats in presale and sold out quickly on Monday.

On the July 28 episode of Dynamite, there were many CM Punk references throughout the show as a report came out that Punk is in talks with AEW for an in-ring return. The most clear reference for many fans was in a Darby Allin promo that was played after the announcement of the United Center event on for AEW Rampage on August 20.

Allin said, “I’ll be in Chicago. You know I’ve been around a lot of men in this world that have laid claim to how they’re the greatest, and there’s only one place to really prove that, right here in AEW, even if you think you’re the best in the world.”

Thurston and Gullo discussed what they will be looking out for when it comes to the United Center show and the future ahead.

Brandon Thurston: Let’s try to look ahead here. Let’s say CM Punk debuts on the August 20 Rampage. He doesn’t wrestle, probably, but maybe he wrestles by the time he’s on the All Out pay-per-view. Maybe that’s CM Punk’s first professional wrestling match since early 2014 at the Royal Rumble.

If he wrestles on the pay-per-view, All Out on September 5, what is that going to draw? It depends greatly, obviously, on the rest of the card. It depends greatly on who his opponent is. It depends on how it’s promoted, what the angles are promoting it and the sentiment around the match, but I think it’s reasonable to expect maybe he wrestles Darby Allin just because why else would you have Darby Allin do that promo saying, “even if you’re the best in the world,” on Dynamite after the United Center announcement.

I could see CM Punk being interested in wrestling somebody Darby Allin. That adds up to me. What does he draw on pay-per-view? At this point, the biggest AEW pay-per-view is Revolution at about 135,000 buys.

Chris Gullo: What do you think? Do you think it breaks 150?

Thurston: Yeah, I think it does. Again, it depends greatly on the execution and the other context. All Out did roughly 90,000 last year. Maybe 175,000 to 200,000?

Another thing I wanted to talk about in this context is the viewership. I think they do have CM Punk. I think they would be insane to do anything other than already have CM Punk under contract and then book and advertise this United Center with hints all around that CM Punk is going to be there. I think they have CM Punk. If they didn’t have Bryan Danielson, I don’t know why Tony Khan would say “no comment” in relation to both of them in an interview that he did recently.

Gullo: If he’s going to be there, and just thinking previously about how Turner didn’t want AEW to not advertise debuts of major talent and all that, do you think they advertise by the 13th, the first Rampage, “Hey, next week, CM Punk will be in the United Center.”

Thurston: I don’t know. I think that’s a calculation that’s debatable. Which way is there more interest? You’re already going to sell out the building. You don’t need it for ticket sales. Is there more buzz and talk that leads to stronger viewership by leaving it strongly implied or by being explicit? I think if the reaction was weaker, yeah, just make it explicit.

Gullo: But people will tune in expecting it and not have to have it out there publicly.

Thurston: If Bryan and Punk are on their way to AEW, I want to think about how that affects TV ratings too, especially in September.

I know AEW’s not really competition to WWE, but ratings between Dynamite and Raw might get closer than ever. Raw will be against Monday Night Football in September. Meanwhile on Dynamite you might have the addition of Punk and Bryan and whatever other momentum they have, assuming that they continue to be at least as well booked and well produced as they are currently.

Excerpts from Wrestlenomics Radio were edited for clarity.

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