[Emperor Smeat]

The Sheets (Observer Newsletter Edition):

As was widely expected, even with the pandemic, the increase in television revenue led to the WWE’s most successful year financially in history, with $974,207,000 in revenue and $131,892,000 in profits, the first time the company has ever topped $100 million in profits during a given year. The profit margin would have been higher but there was money spent from a contract in 2019 regarding leasing new headquarters, a loss of $4.4 million from an equity investment and normalized profits would have been $141,600,000. Of that income, $868,200,000 came from media, which would be mostly rights fees for content and WWE network revenues. $19.9 million came from live events in the early part of the year before the pandemic and $86.1 million came from consumer products. As far as profitability went, the media department had $409.9 million in profitability in the division while the live events department, because of the lack of shows, lost $14.0 million and the consumer product department had $28.8 million in profits. Between WWE Network revenue and PPV revenue the company took in $185,667,000 in 2020 as compared to $184,553,000 in 2019 and $199,318,000 in 2018. With no merchandise at live events for most of the year, the web site merchandise increased greatly this year. Total orders increased from 619,700 at $47.36 per order, or $29,349,000 in 2019 to 772,300 orders at $56.72 per order, or $43,805,000, an increase of 49.3 percent in revenue ... However, television rights fees for Raw, Smackdown and NXT on a worldwide basis increased from $348,593,000 in 2019, where only quarter four was under the new U.S. deals, and $269,793,000 in 2018 on the old deals, so $538,334,000 in 2020. Licensing dropped from $43,197,000 in 2019 to $41,675,000 in 2020, but there are so many variables, the key being no new major video game this year. On 12/31, the WWE Network had 1,469,700 worldwide subscribers, with 1,080,900 in the U.S. and 388,800 outside the U.S. At the end of 2019, those numbers were $1,391,000 worldwide, 997,300 in the U.S. and 393,700 worldwide. The gains were during the pandemic as a number of streaming services gained more popularity, but it was more the introduction of the free tier, which led to a substantial rise at first earlier in the year before declines at close to usual rates from that point. During the fourth quarter, network subscriptions in the U.S. declined by 56,000 and outside the U.S. declined by 23,000. During the fourth quarter of 2019 the declines were 66,000 in the U.S. and 11,000 internationally, so while the markets were different, the overall decline was 79,000 subscribers this year as 77,000 last year, or nearly identical ... At the 2/4 investors call, WWE President Nick Khan noted the entire network content would be moved over to Peacock, and consumers will get it at a lower price. The hope is that on a bigger platform that has 33 million subscribers in the U.S. as opposed to 1.1 million, that more will sample the product and become fans. By that same rationale, WWE’s popularity should have gained significantly with the move to FOX, and while we don’t have complete evidence given COVID took away the places you could tell that, there is no indication of growth from last year past the mid-year network growth that has since followed usual patterns. The fourth quarter numbers fell shy of predictions. The consensus among analysts was $245.04 million in revenue and $25 million in profits. The actual figures were $238.2 million in revenue and $13.6 million in profits. The decline in profits from expectations was largely due to increasing the costs of producing Raw and Smackdown in moving it to the Thunderdome set-up. This led the stock in after-hours trading from closing at $56.00 per share and giving the company a $4.356 billion market value to a decline to $53.00 and a $4.123 billion market value ... The key reasons are that the company made great savings this year during the pandemic in furloughing and getting rid of a number of employees and the costs of production of shows at the Performance Center was very low. Many, although far from all of those employees have been brought back, and in moving Raw and Smackdown to the Thunderdome, not only are costs way up for each show than at the Performance Center, but they budget 25 percent more than for a regular arena set up with fans which is probably over the course of a year about $26 million more in costs from a normal year. In addition, there was one Saudi Arabia show in 2020. Right now it’s uncertain whether there will be a show in 2021, although they certainly hope for one by the end of the year ... Vince McMahon said they hoped to return to producing live events with fans but could not say when. Later in the call, when talking about selling tickets to WrestleMania, Khan said that it would be the only event the company would be selling tickets to until at least the third quarter (July). McMahon said that once they get to go-ahead that they can run, they can implement a regular schedule in six weeks ... Khan said that while growing ratings is important, the company’s No. 1 priority is getting new subscribers for Peacock, meaning essentially the biggest matches and attractions will remain no PPV and on Raw or Smackdown itself ... Khan talked about the success of the Superstar Spectacle on Sony in India. He said it was viewed by 20 million people on all the different platforms (this can be misleading because YouTube measures viewers who may only watch 30 seconds or less) and that it did five times the numbers that Raw and Smackdown do in that market. He said they are looking at more content. Khan and Stephanie put over the usage of Bad Bunny, saying he was an authentic Latin American talent who resonates big in that market. He was the most streamed musical artist in the world in 2020 and they pushed Damien Priest (who is being linked to Bunny in storylines and is expected to tag team with him at WrestleMania) as their planned next major Puerto Rican star to the Latin American audience. They also noted that the Bad Bunny WWE merchandise in recent days has become the hottest selling merchandise in the history of WWE shop ... Stephanie said that the landscape has changed, with the streaming behemoths investing heavily in content and they are there to provide that content. She said they are needing to pivot and allocate our resources to content creation production and storytelling and that the new deal gives people greater access to the company’s key content like WrestleMania. The one given out of the Peacock deal is that more people in the U.S. will watch WrestleMania this year than any other year in history. In fact, it shouldn’t even be close. WrestleMania itself will also generate less actual money than ever before, but WWE will derive more revenue this year off the deal, but far less than in the PPV era ... They estimated total revenue would have been about $90 million more without COVID, from presentation of live event, the Saudi Arabia show, and venue merchandise. Salen estimated that profits would be 15 to 20 percent higher after COVID because of adding revenue from tickets and merchandise and lowering the production costs of television. Between those who got it as part of a subscription at one point during the fourth quarter, and those who got the free tier, there were 2.2 million worldwide people who watched the WWE Network. Even though you can get key content for free, that 2.2 million worldwide figure is actually tiny compared to the television audience. It’s impossible to know how many people at one point tuned into Raw or Smackdown at one point in the quarter on television but it would have to be more than 10 million easily in the U.S. The company generated $292 million in cash flow in 2020 as compared to $52.6 million last year. They had $593 million in cash and short term investments on 12/31 and $100 million in debt. In January, they paid off that $100 million in debt so they are essentially back to being debt free. They are planning to restart building a new headquarters in late 2021. They had planned to build it but shut down plans due to the uncertainty of the pandemic last April. They expect to spend $65 million to $85 million between construction and enhanced technology for the headquarters. They said first quarter profits would be down from last year due to no Saudi Arabia show and higher production costs for television, offset by money being paid by Peacock that is new money. In quarter four, Raw went from an average of 2,180,000 viewers last year to 1,733,000 this year, or a 20.5 percent decline. If you factor out the three hours of Raw each week, the USA Network went from averaging 605,000 viewers in prime time last year to 573,000 or a decline of 5.3 percent during the same period. So Raw’s decline was far greater than that of the network itself. If we then factor out NXT, which fell from 829,000 to 686,000 post-election, you have a 577,000 prime time average in 2019 and a and a 559,000 average this year, or a non-wrestling USA Network decline of 3.1 percent. Overall cable viewing was up 0.2 percent in quarter four from the previous quarter four, but that was largely because of the giant news numbers leading up to the election and that networks shows, which draw the most viewers, were in reruns far more this year than last year, when the season started across the board in October. Smackdown’s average fell from 2,467,000 viewers to 2,105,000 a decline of 14.7 percent. That is far better than the overall FOX decline of 5,208,000 (5,497,000 if you eliminate Smackdown taking down the average) to 3,580,000 (3,735,000 if you eliminate Smackdown taking down the average). But that is also misleading because Smackdown was live and new each week and FOX was still airing reruns far longer and more in the quarter with the pandemic shutting down the production of new shows. The same can be said for the 21 percent drop of the four networks from last year, due to far more rerun programming. If anything, with the less competition, the Smackdown numbers should have increased. The Smackdown number didn’t include the two FS 1 shows, but did include the Christmas show directly after the NFL which inflated the average from a normalized (taking that show out and the FS 1 shows out) of 2,014,000 or a more real decline of 18.4 percent, which is closer to the decline of Raw. However, Smackdown in recent weeks has not been down as compared to last year at the level of decline of Raw or NXT.

Edge and Bianca Belair won the men and women’s Royal Rumbles in WWE’s second biggest annual event on 1/31 at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, FL. The win puts both in key WrestleMania matches. At press time, while not announced, one of the WrestleMania main events will be Edge challenging Roman Reigns for the Universal title. Edge winning was for the storyline that Edge retired as champion and now that he’s come back, is looking to regain the title as the culmination of his return. Right now there is no plan regarding who wins this match. It is notable the difference with Edge and Daniel Bryan on the creative team. It was notable that they were the two people who got substantial interview time leading to the match, but Edge, at 47, was pushing for a main event title shot, while Bryan, at 39, in his position was pushing constantly to get other people over. Belair’s opponent was not 100 percent locked in at least as of her Rumble win. The women’s Rumble, which was fairly messy work wise, had an exciting last few minutes when Belair was left with Rhea Ripley and eventually won. Ripley, Shotzi Blackheart, Toni Storm, Santana Garrett, Dakota Kai and Ember Moon from NXT were in the women’s match because they needed 30 bodies. For Ripley, this was supposed to be the start of a Raw or Smackdown run as her loss to Raquel Gonzalez was meant as her NXT blow-off several weeks ago. It’s not yet clear which brand Ripley would be on, past that she should be pushed strongly. The other women were to remain in NXT, although Garrett’s usage was interesting because she’s not even pushed on NXT television while there are plenty of women who are that could have been in the spot. Damien Priest was the only NXT performer in the men’s match. He debuted on the Raw side the next night. It appears Priest is set for a big showcase as Bad Bunny’s partner at WrestleMania in a tag match against John Morrison & The Miz. That match isn’t confirmed at this point, but it looks likely since Bunny is scheduled to wrestle on the show and this seemed to be the angle set up. And it makes sense since Miz & Morrison are the comedic foil heels who always lose, so a celebrity beating them doesn’t hurt. The idea is Priest will get the rub in the Latino community in particular of being Bunny’s tag team partner.

While the show itself was entertaining, the Rumble match pointed to a real problem with the company on the men’s side. The average age of a men’s participant was 39.0 years old, making it the oldest Rumble in history. While you always have a few people from the past brought back to skew the age a little, that number is still scary old. Worse, there were only two men in the Rumble who were under the age of 30, Dominik Mysterio and Otis, who were in for a combined 2:53 and both were largely treated as jokes in the match. This is for a company that spends upwards of $20 million per year on a developmental system. And of the 30 men in the Rumble, the only ones who were trained in that system, which has been eight years of the big money system were Elias, King Corbin and Otis, essentially three guys nobody even notes or calls good or great wrestlers. If you include the lower budgeted Florida Championship Wrestling from 2007 to 2013, the only one you can add is Big E. If you add OVW and even lower budgeted, which now brings you back to 1999, you can add Orton, Dolph Ziggler, The Miz, John Morrison and Bobby Lashley. It’s scary that guys trained at OVW 15-20 years ago when they would only have about 20 guys in camp are more prominent today than the last seven years with more money spent on recruiting and training, as in like 40 times as much money and 100-200 wrestlers being trained and this is the output of it ... If you look at the roster among the men and go ten years deep, Angel Garza, a last minute cut from the match, could still be a star although Garza’s trajectory isn’t in that direction. Otis and Dominik have chances but Otis seems more like a one-note gimmick right now that won’t stand the test of time and the WWE has a habit of totally botching guys like Dominik ... Jey Uso was advertised for the show but wasn’t medically cleared. Mia Yim (Reckoning of Retribution) tested positive for COVID on 1/30 and thus couldn’t compete the next day. There was a weird irony in the sense she denied that she had COVID at 10:30 a.m. that day, a rumor that spread over her missing the 1/18 TV show (but she was back 1/25). Then after posing that she got a test result back saying she was positive and updated her own story. She was the only person scheduled who came out and said it but there were at least three people scheduled originally who had to be pulled due to testing positive. Another late change was Otis replacing Angel Garza. Otis had been advertised. Garza was there and was supposed to come in, do a comedy spot tearing off his pants, and then get eliminated right away. At the last minute, Otis was put back in, in the spot Garza was in. Trent Baretta told a story similar on Twitter that day saying that one year he was supposed to be in. He was at the meeting waiting to find out his spot and what he was supposed to do. Then they went through the match and nobody brought him up and he realized that he had been pulled from the match ... For those asking about Rey Mysterio and the Victoria beer promotion, that was a deal WWE and the beer company put together and since they wanted Mysterio as the face of the deal, that’s the situation. It wasn’t a deal Mysterio did on his own, because if he had, he would have had to have dropped it, similar to the women having to drop all of their sponsorship deals in October.

New Japan Pro Wrestling announced on 2/4 that its new television deal, as rumored for weeks, would be with the Roku Channel, and would cover the U.S., U.K. and Canada ... The Channel claims to stream to 61.8 million U.S. viewers, but it can be accessed for free by anyone. There were other stations that had interest in the property but would not have been as beneficial to the company from a long-term basis because the key is providing data that shows within the universe of viewers that the show has popularity, and thus, down the line, can build its platform. The deal is likely disappointing to many on the surface hoping for a pick-up by a major sports channel. A key aspect is that New Japan was hampered in making a deal based on lack of provable data, because AXS didn’t subscribe to Nielsen when New Japan was on the station (they started after the sale to Anthem) and thus there were no numbers with the Nielsen stamp of approval on them to try and sell the television popularity of the product. Doing house show business, including a one-day Madison Square Garden sellout in 2019, is not language in and of itself that would get a major station to air the product. It is true that All In played a part in TNT broadcasting AEW, which also had no television track record when they signed a two-year deal in 2019. But that had to do with personal connections that Tony Khan had and that people in New Japan or helped negotiate the deal for New Japan didn’t have at the same level ... There had been talks with ESPN and Vice, among others, but the lack of proof of viewership numbers of the show on AXS didn’t lead to a deal. There was interest by CBS Sports Network, which airs Bellator. The problem there was that there would have been no money offered, just an advertising split, and CBS Sports Network no longer subscribes to Nielsen, so whatever they drew wouldn’t have any stamp of approval.

AAA and the Mexican Department of Tourism announced a year-long deal at a press conference on 2/2. AAA will be taping television at tourist locations around the country starting 2/4 to 2/6 in Tlaxcala at a bullring. These events will have no fans and the deal includes shows in 11 different states. The idea is the government will be using the shows in picturesque locations to promote tourism to those locations, just as WWE did with the Saudi Arabia shows and UFC did with the Abu Dhabi shows

Jun Akiyama, who has been working full-time for DDT after a deal made with All Japan, did note that All Japan didn’t renew his contract and he’s technically a free agent.

Game Changer Wrestling ran a 24-hour live show for free on FITE and YouTube asking for donations for tons of wrestlers who due to COVID had bookings cut way back and for a time eliminated. In that sense, the show was a big success, raising $53,000. If there was big news, it was Blake Christian lost a match where he’d have to leave the promotion. He’s worked with ROH and New Japan of late and had been one of the few independent guys in recent months who had built a name. Alex Zayne, who he had worked with a lot and they made their names together, is now with WWE. The show also featured a two-hour match with Tony Deppen vs. Jordan Oliver. It was billed as a one-hour Iron Man match, but the two ended tied, and they went a full second hour. That was probably the longest match on television/streaming in recent memory if not ever. They billed it as the longest match ever in the U.S., but that wouldn’t be the case as in the early days of wrestling the biggest matches with the top names often exceeded two hours. The longest match we know of in the U.S was the Strangler Lewis vs. Joe Stecher match on July 4, 1916, which went more than five hours to a draw. Oliver ended up winning the Iron Man match seven falls to six.

IMPACT: The company has lost its television deal with Freesport and they are now pushing the shows being available on Facebook and YouTube in that market. They will go up on Wednesday night so the positive they are pushing is that fans in the U.K. will get to see the show faster than in the past. They were on a trial with Freesport and Freesport wasn’t offering anything monetarily to continue, so they are looking for a new station to go along with a new deal with Pluto TV

AEW: The Shaquille O’Neal & Jade Cargill vs. Cody Rhodes & Red Velvet match was announced for the 3/3 television show, which should draw a good rating for Shaq wrestling. The key isn’t even the rating, although that is definitely part of it, but in getting the AEW name out to the public through the media based on this match. The match couldn’t take place on the 3/7 Revolution PPV since it looks like the NBA All-Star game is that day, meaning O’Neal has to work at his regular job covering it

The most-watched shows on the WWE Network this past week: 1. Royal Rumble; 2. WWE Icons-Yokozuna; 3. Best of the APA; 4. Royal Rumble kickoff show; 5 Royal Rumble 2020; 6. WWE Icons Revisited-Yokozuna; 7. Elimination Chamber 2020; 8. Day of Royal Rumble 2014; 9. WWE Chronicle: Bianca Belair; 10. Raw Talk. What’s notable is that Talking Smack, NXT, NXT U.K. and 205 Live all didn’t place in the top 25 for the week

Ratings stuff:

SPOILER: show

The Raw after the Royal Rumble on 2/1 did what has to be considered a very disappointing number with 1,892,000 viewers and 0.58 (744,000 viewers) in 18-49. For comparison of recent years, the 2020 version of the show did 2,402,000 viewers and 0.76 in 18-49. In 2019, it did 2,703,000 viewers and 0.95. In 2018, it did 3,315,000 viewers and 1.14. In 2017, it did 3,615,000 viewers and 1.37. In 2016 it did 4,098,000 viewers and 1.51. In 2015 it did 4,420,000 viewers and 1.43. So the drop over five years has been 53.8 percent in viewers and 61.6 percent in 18-49. While Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair drew a bigger number for the legends returning on 1/4, and a Dwayne Johnson appearance would as well if that was to happen, the show the day after Rumble and the day after Mania are usually the two most sure things for a big number that WWE has. The show was headlined by Edge’s first television match in nearly a decade, against Randy Orton. But for reasons I can’t even possibly comprehend, this was never advertised in advance. It wasn’t even advertised at the start of the show when the audience figured to be at its highest. Well into the show, it was mentioned as the main event. It was strong enough that hour three held up better and actually beat hour two in the 18-49 demo, which is rare. But it was only with men, as the women’s 18-49 drop from the start was bigger than usual, but in a rare case, men peaked in hour three which almost never happens. Raw did hold the top three spots for the night on cable in 18-49, and even beat NBC (no reruns) and CBS (all reruns) on the networks, losing only to ABC and FOX on all of television. Raw was 18th in viewers on cable, trailing 17 news shows. The first hour did 1,981,000 viewers. The second hour did 1,895,000 viewers. The third hour did 1,811,000 viewers As compared to the day after Mania last year, it was down 21.2 percent in viewers, 23.7 percent in 18-49 and 38.9 percent in 18-34. As compared to last week, the show was up 4.0 percent in viewers, 11. 11.5 percent in 18-49 and 6.5 percent in 18-34. The show did 136,000 in men 18-34, 97,000 in women 18-34, 343,000 in men 35-49 and 168,000 in women 35-49. In looking at the first-to-third drops by category, you can see who Edge vs. Orton appealed to and who it didn’t. The show did a 21.7 percent drop in women 18-49. It did a rare 2.6 percent gain in men 18-49, it increased 22 percent with teenage girls and increased 12.4 percent with teenage boys while falling 10.2 percent with those over 50.

Smackdown on 1/29 did a 1.41 rating and 2,304,000 viewers (1.34 viewers per home) and a 0.62 in 18-49, slightly down from the week before but still not far off last year’s numbers. Only one other network show, 20/20, did less than three million viewers and that did 2,908,000 so it was last in viewers, but first in 18-49, beating a rerun of Shark Tank that did 0.58. It was also first in 18-34 at 0.38. It also beat everything on cable so it was No. 1 in those demos for the night, although in a fair comparison Gold Rush and the two NBA games on cable really did better. Among network shows it was first in Males 18-49 and second in women 18-49 behind the Shark Tank repeat. It was up 1.4 percent from last week in homes watching, down 3.3 percent from last week in overall viewers due to the decrease in viewers per home, down 1.6 percent in 18-49 but up 11.8 percent in 18-34. As compared to last year, it was down 6.0 percent in homes, 4.8 percent in viewers, down 10.5 percent in 18-49 and down 24.0 percent in 18-34. Smackdown did 134,000 in men 18-34, 133,000 in women 18-34, 320,000 in men 35-49 and 210,000 in women 35-49. The audience was 57.0 percent men in 18-49. In the half hours, the first half hour with the Daniel Bryan interview and the first part of Bayley vs. Bianca Belair did 2.41 million viewers, which is very strong. The second half hour with the second part of Bayley vs. Belair, King Corbin vs. Dominik Mysterio did 2.34 million viewers. The third half our with a Kevin Owens interview and Bryan vs. A.J. Styles did 2.29 million viewers. The final half hour with Bryan & Big E & Shinsuke Nakamura vs. Cesaro & Styles & Sami Zayn, which turned into a ten man with Otis & Sheamus on one side and Miz & Morrison on the other fell to 2.17 million viewers.

For the 1/27 Wednesday shows, the demos showed some incredibly strange patterns. This way the show where some cable systems and all U.S. streaming systems didn’t air much of the first 30 minutes, and in some places it wasn’t cleared up as long as an hour. This helped NXT a lot as shown in the comparisons from last week show. An interesting note is that AEW was down to 1.41 viewers per home, so it wasn’t as if the homes stopped watching as match as one of the viewers in the home switched. It actually had an identical number of homes watching (520,000) as the week before when the numbers were considered great, so it was all about the decline in viewers per home, which was likely more the outage early on caused the second person in a number of the homes to switch to something else. AEW was the third youngest skewing sports show of the week behind Liverpool vs. Tottenham from the EPL on NBC Sports Network which was on a Thursday afternoon at 3 p.m. which is advantageous to drawing a younger audience, and a Tuesday night prime time NHL game on NBC Sports Network with the New York Islanders vs. Washington. The basic numbers saw AEW do 67,000 viewers in males 18-34 (down 19.3 percent) to 38,000 for NXT (up 52.0 percent). AEW did 32,000 in women 18-34 (down 38.5 percent) to 37,000 for NXT (up 146.7 percent). AEW did 191,000 in males 35-49 (down 18.4 percent) to 109,000 for NXT (up 18.5 percent). AEW did 90,000 in women 35-49 (down 7.2 percent) to 94,000 for NXT (up 46.9 percent). The swings were far larger with women in the direction of NXT. In males 18-34, AEW with the blackout had only 30,000 first quarter and 78,000 last quarter while NXT also drew from 38,000 to 58,000 for the main event. In women 18-34 never got the audience back, having just 30,000 in the first quarter and the main event only got to 35,000. NXT went from 64,000 when AEW was down to 19,000 for the main event. In males 35-49, AEW had 184,000 during the first and last quarter, while NXT had 146,000 when AEW was down but just 75,000 for the main event. In women 35-49, this was the crazy one, AEW had 132,000 when so much were blacked out and declined to 63,000 for the main event. NXT had 115,000 for the first quarter and 75,000 for the main event.

In a sense, both AEW and NXT did disappointing numbers on 2/3, although I’d categorize AEW as mildly disappointing but impressive in other ways, and NXT as more of a disaster given the show was built around Edge coming off his Royal Rumble win and teasing revealing that he would challenge for the NXT title. Edge coming to NXT wasn’t pushed on Raw, which was a big mistake, but was pushed hard for two days on social media. The result was shockingly bad as AEW more than doubled NXT in the key demo. AEW placed third for the night with 844,000 viewers and 0.32 in 18-49 (408,000 viewers) and 0.14 in 18-34. NXT placed 51st with 610,000 viewers and 0.15 (197,000 viewers) in 18-49. Because it finished out of the top 50 we don’t have the 18-34 number. The head-to-head numbers because NXT had an overrun were 609,000 viewers and 195,000 in 18-49. On the positive side, AEW beat the NBA game head-to-head with them, which only happens on rare occasions, as the early ESPN game did 701,000 viewers and an 0.23. The NHL game on NBC Sports Network did 633,000 viewers and 0.18, meaning on a weaker station the NHL beat NXT which is something to follow. AEW finished behind Challenge Double Agent on MTV (920,000 viewers and 0.54) and the late NBA game on ESPN (984,000 viewers; 0.33). AEW skewed its oldest in a long time, which wasn’t good. AEW also had a themed show, Beach Break, featured Kenny Omega & Karl Anderson & Doc Gallows vs. Rey Fenix & Jon Moxley & Pac in the main event, a bout that had both Omega and Moxley in it, a tag team Battle Royal for a title shot, an appearance by Shaquille O’Neal (taped from Inside the NBA not advertised) and the Kip Sabian/Penelope Ford wedding. Weddings historically do very strong numbers in wrestling. The wedding was the strongest thing of the night, but overall the show should have done better in 18-49 given everything on it. AEW was up 15.0 percent from last week where the production snafu on the streaming side killed them early, but were only up 7.4 percent in 18-49 and just 1.0 percent in 18-34. NXT was down 15.3 percent in viewers and 29.1 percent in 18-49 and 46.7 percent in 18-34 from last week’s show that was clearly boosted by AEW’s misfire. But as compared to last year, AEW was down 9.1 percent in viewers, 12.8 percent in 18-49 and 36.3 percent in 18-34, the latter drop in a year along similar lines as Raw and Smackdown. It was only a few months ago when Dynamite was beating Raw and Smackdown in women 18-34 and on part with them overall in 18-34. This past week, the numbers for overall were 267,000 for Smackdown, 233,000 for aw and 100,000 for AEW, so they’ve badly lost ground. With women 18-34, it was 133,000 for Smackdown, 97,000 for Raw and 35,000 for AEW. NXT was down 20.8 percent in viewers from last year and 31.6 percent in 18-49 and 58.3 percent in 18-34. So while AEW is skewing older, NXT is badly skewing older. Where AEW is really hurting as compared to late last year is women. In 18-49, AEW was only 21st for the night in women. It was second in men 18-49 behind only the late NBA game and was first in its time slow. It was only 13th in 18-34, and sixth in men 18-34. As far as the key demos went, AEW did 65,000 in men 18-34 (down 3.0 percent from last week) to 20,000 for NXT (down 44.4 percent). AEW did 35,000 in women 18-34 (up 9.4 percent) to 20,000 for NXT (down 45.9 percent). AEW did 205,000 in men 35-49 (up 7.3 percent) to 101,000 for NXT (down 7.3 percent) and AEW did 103,000 in women 35-49 (up 14.4 percent) to 56,000 for NXT (down 40.4 percent). In the main event battle, AEW with Omega & Anderson & Gallows vs. Moxley & Fenix & Pac did 804,000 viewers and 409,000 in 18-49. NXT with Tommaso Ciampa & Timothy Thatcher vs. Adam Cole & Roderick Strong in the Dusty Rhodes tag team tournament did 519,000 viewers and 183,000 in 18-49. NXT also had a seven minute overrun and after AEW went off the air NXT gained 109,000 viewers and 53,000 in 18-49 from AEW. AEW opened with 952,000 viewers and 417,000 in 18-49 for the tag team Battle Royal. NXT had 713,000 viewers and 205,000 in 18-49 for the tag tournament match with Dakota Kai & Raquel Gonzalez vs. Kacy Catanzaro & Kayden Carter. It was the high point of the show in total viewers for both AEW and NXT and high point with both shows in women 18-49. In the second quarter, AEW did 866,000 viewers and 400,000 in 18-49 for a Jade Cargill video, and Sting & Darby Allin and Team Taz in an interview segment. NXT did 652,000 viewers and 199,000 in 18-49 for a Toni Storm interview, Edge & William Regal and the beginning of Austin Theory vs. Leon Ruff. In the third quarter, AEW did 868,000 viewers and 401,000 in 18-49 for Britt Baker vs. Thunder Rosa and a Matt Hardy & Adam Page promo. NXT did 612,000 viewers and 191,000 in 18-49 for the second half of Theory vs. Ruff, a Legado del Fantasma video, a Tian Shan video and the beginning of Raul Mendoza & Joaquin Wilde vs. Gran Metalik & Lince Dorado. In the fourth quarter, AEW did 771,000 viewers and 391,000 in 18-49 for Page & Hardy vs. Luther & Serpentico, the women’s tournament announcement and the Inner Circle backstage. NXT did 594,000 viewers and 190,000 in 18-49 for the second half of Mendoza & Wilde vs. Metalik & Dorado and MSK out. In the fifth quarter, AEW did 868,000 viewers and 427,000 in 18-49 for the Sabian/Ford wedding. This popped big for women 35-49. NXT did 618,000 viewers and 202,000 in 18-49 for the Balor, Dunne and Edge interview segment, the Johnny Gargano/Kushida segment and Toni Storm vs. Jessi Kamea. In the sixth quarter, AEW did 855,000 viewers and 436,000 in 18-49 for Eddie Kingston vs. Lance Archer in a lumberjack match and the FTR promo. This was AEW’s high point of the show in 18-49 and men 18-49, NXT did 577,000 viewers and 173,000 in 18-49 for the Curt Stallion interview and Santos Escobar vs. Stallion for the cruiserweight title. In the seventh quarter, AEW did 770,000 viewers and 384,000 in 18-49 for the Joey Janela interview, next week’s card and ring entrances for the main event. NXT did 586,000 viewers and 213,000 in 18-49 for the end of Escobar vs Stallion, Karrion Kross challenging Escobar and Edge and Kross having a face-off. This was NXT’s high point of the show in 18-49. This was the high point of the show for NXT in men 18-49. In the final quarter, AEW with Omega & Anderson & Gallows vs. Moxley & Pac & Fenix gained 34,000 viewers and 25,000 in 18-49. NXT with Thatcher & Ciampa vs. Cole & Strong lost 67,000 viewers and 30,000 in 18-49.