AEW ticket sales

The barometer for success is the combination of revenue and profit.

It might sound overly simplistic, particularly with how many variables can be involved within the sports entertainment industry, but the bottom line for pro wrestling, or really any other business venture, is how much money was made? If you draw a million dollars at the gate, but finished a dollar in the red, ultimately, it was a failed  business deal.

One of the famous cliches of the wrestling business is, "how do you get a million dollars in pro wrestling? Start with two million."

The ability to make money and turn a profit are the key points that determine if a project can get off the ground. Besides the fact that the cash is the entire point of running a promotion, or at least it should be, the success of nearly every other aspect of the project can be associated with the numbers that it drew for the company. Going back to the complex portion of the discussion, if there's one cog in the wheel out of sorts, the entire process can end up off track. You can have the best booking and build up to a live event, but if the marketing and promotional side isn't on point, you're not going to get the message across to sell the show to the local audience. There was a reason that TNA drew embarrassing house show crowds when they had a national television show on Spike TV every week. Still, you need the original ingredients to be mixed and cooked properly in the first place for the previously mentioned marketing team to be able to sell it to the public.

Since the inception of All Elite Wrestling almost seven years ago, with the start of the original Double or Nothing pay-per-view, I have written often that Tony Khan's goal should be to turn a profit, not necessarily compete with the WWE. Sure, the two groups are in the same business and compete for market share, but again, success is based on the ability to be a profitable commodity, or at least it should be. To use another TNA analogy, one of the many, many reasons that Dixie Carter failed as a promoter was that she thought that competing with WWE was the way to "win" in the sports entertainment industry. She could've saved her dad a lot of cash if she would've realized that profit is the goal.

Granted, in some respects, All Elite Wrestling is an anomaly since money is no object to Tony Khan and the existence of the promotion doesn't depend on its ability to be profitable. Shad Khan is a billionaire, and the Khan family makes a few billion dollars a year based on his original patent within the auto parts industry, as well as his ownership of a few different sports teams.

Regardless, the prospects and success rate are still relevant within the traditional analysis of the company because without those metrics, the promotion boils down to Tony's vanity project.

That being said, the success of ticket sales for this weekend's Double or Nothing pay-per-view at Louis Armstrong Stadium in New York is an indication of a formula that works for the promotion. According to The Wrestling Observer, the event has sold almost 14,000 tickets so far and is expected to be a sell out before the show kicks off this Sunday. The Observer noted that the Double or Nothing show last year at The Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Arizona sold 8,200 tickets, which was roughly half a house at the venue. Clearly, with nearly double of the amount of tickets sold, the build to this year's Double or Nothing has been much more effective. Taking into account that the cheapest ticket is currently listed at $225, there's no doubt that there's a true demand for tickets to be in the building for the 2026 edition of the show. It can't be understated how impressive it is that AEW is still able to move tickets, especially at that price, when gas prices continue to increase in the midst of the ongoing conflict with Iran. When there's a direct crunch to disposable income with the increased costs of necessities, such as gas, utilities, and groceries, it's not a fluke when consumers decide to use a limited amount of disposable income on live event tickets. Tony Khan has booked a card that the audience wants to see, and built up the importance as something that they are willing to pay to attend, even in the current economy.

Ironically, the build to the PPV, which will be headlined by Darby Allin vs. Maxwell Jacob Friedman in a hair vs. title match, is different from the usual slapstick booking approach that Tony Khan usually takes with most pay-per-view cards. While it's well known that Friedman is from Long Island, it's doubtful that this is a hometown draw. Instead, a feud was booked with something at stake. Darby Allin won the title in a fluke fashion, which was probably by designed, but there were very deliberate steps to give him credibility as the champion. As I've written several times in the past, Adam Page was a lukewarm champion because his first defense was a draw and then he cut whiny promos about defending the title. That along with the illogical baby face and heel switches over the years have kept him at a position of indifference. In many ways, Tony Khan took the opposite approach with how he booked Darby as champion. Allin has defended the belt almost weekly, which was also probably by design to play a role in the overall storyline, but in the process, he was made to look like a fighting champion. That notion is one of the traits of a good baby face. The "good guy," especially in a main event role should have admirable traits that the audience can connect with. Despite most of his career being reduced to a stunt show, this current angle presents Darby as the underdog champion that will defend against anyone. Along the same lines, even though Maxwell Jacob Friedman was devalued with how he was used at certain points in his AEW career, and it appears that he's okay with it as long as he gets a hefty paycheck from Tony Khan, he can still work as a top heel when it counts. A baby face that the crowd rallies behind and a heel with heat might sound too simplistic, but there's a reason that it works. Clearly, the ticket sales are proof that it worked for the Double or Nothing pay-per-view.

Usually, when a hair vs. hair match is booked, it's a set up for the heel to have to pay for their sins. In this case, with Darby as the champion already, I think the possibility of MJF getting his head shaved is only being used as the carrot on the end of the stick to be used for a payoff at some point in the future. Truthfully, the title on the line and the hair stipulation are what drew the house, and AEW hasn't promised anything so it's fine that only the possibility is being used to sell the show. While I think that MJF will win the title this Sunday, with the notion that Darby burned the candle at both ends when he defended the title every week to set up for the eventual showdown with Will Ospreay at Wembley Stadium, the reception to the hair stipulation, there's money to be made again when Friedman finally gets his head shaved down the road.

The sum of the Darby Allin/MJF feud was that it built very well and garnered interest, both on pay-per-view and in the building. As I said, it's not easy to accomplish both of those in the current economic landscape. Assuming that MJF wins the title back and the bigger picture is Wembley, the Darby feud was a great short-term storyline that added more in the grand scheme of things. That's also why All Elite Wrestling can be a very frustrating viewing experience because the Darby/MJF storyline is proof that the pieces of the puzzle are there for the company to have a better product.