The "it's more profitable than any other promotion outside of WWE" argument is just as dumb as when sports talking heads start talking about how today's athletes are better than the ones in the past.
It's an obvious statement that doesn't factor in the historical context. AEW will get a fukk ton of money thanks to TV deals because the company is lucky enough to be in an Era were TV content is key and has become by leaps and bounds the main source of income for a wrestling company.
For almost a century, that was not the case for wrestling, and promotions lived and died with ticket sales, later it added merchandise and for like 2 decades it was PPV buys + ticket sales + merch + TV, with TV deals being pretty low on the totem pole.
If companies like AJW, AAA, All Japan , CMLL. New Japan, and WCW had their peaks in an era were media companies were willing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars for their highly rated TV product, then they would've gotten a much bigger deal than what AEW is getting right now.
Just like when NBA talking heads debate over 80's and 90's players not being as good as today's because "they couldn't shoot 3 pointers like current players", not factoring in that a bunch of great players of the past would've been great 3 point shooters today if the game asked them to be that kind of player. Or that Bill Russell wouldn't be dominant today when we had Draymond Green be a huge dominant factor on defense for like half a decade. It's all about historical context.
Profitable how? Renting out 20k seat arenas where 2-3k show up is a huge money loss, the video game was a complete bust, and the ppv numbers are private.
By getting $180 millon a year just on U.S TV deals alone.
