AEW is set to have a major increase in revenue compared to last year despite multiple setbacks.
To say that 2023 has been a mixed year for the promotion has been an understatement. In terms of positives, AEW has expanded their weekly TV library and signed multiple top stars such as Adam Copeland and Will Ospreay to multi-year deals. While the ticket sales for All In will continue to be disputed, it can’t be denied that the debut UK show was a success in quality and revenue.
Of course, it has not been a perfect year for Tony Khan’s promotion, far from it. Ratings and live attendance have been consistently down compared to 2022 and they have been crushed in every head-to-head battle with WWE, which could play a factor in media rights negotiations, which are reportedly up soon. Also, while the company did host a major international show and now broadcast a live show every Saturday night, this is affected by travel and accommodation costs.
With AEW not being as hot of a product as it was one year ago, how has it affected the company financially?
As reported in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, projections are for AEW’s revenue for 2023 to be $170 million to $175 million, significantly up from 2022, which was just over $100 million. It noted that the final revenues from past and future pay-per-views will still affect the values along with ad revenue from TV broadcasts.
As the saying goes in business, revenue is vanity profit is sanity. It has been previously reported that AEW was not profitable and needed to make $200 million in media rights to achieve this. Those within the promotion have hit back at these claims, stating that 2023 was a “massive success”:
Those internally have argued that they believe the perception from the outside that AEW is a declining company is a massive disconnect, citing the huge increase in revenue and that they are so far ahead as an overall business from where they were at the start of 2023 and that the year overall has to be called a massive success, particularly the second half of the year
Will AEW Make A Profit In 2024?
Naturally, AEW will be looking to increase their revenue even further in the next year, but it is not as straightforward. While they will have a whole year of Collision instead of 6 months, in theory, this means an increase in revenue from 2023. However, this is assuming that the attendance level stays at a similar level.
Even though All In 2024 has been confirmed there is an expectation that the event will sell a lot less tickets than the inaugural event and will incur the same travel costs. Additionally, there are rumours of even more pay-per-views added to the 2024 calendar, which should in theory create more revenue. It has not been known for a wrestling promotion to increase their pay-per-views and it have a negative effect on their finances.
Ultimately, the deciding factor will be the media rights and if Warner Bros. Discovery wants to renew and for how much. With ratings a lot lower and a competitive market in live sports and renewed projects that were on hiatus due to the Hollywood strikes, nothing is guaranteed for the promotion when it’s time to negotiate. However, if WBD wants to still have wrestling on their network, it looks unlikely that it will be WWE.