NEEDLE MOVED: CM Punk draws 1.1 Million viewers for AEW Rampage Debut

[Saysumthinfunnymike]

Social media views and clicks don't mean shyt when it doesn't actually translate into people actually watching the product or service you're selling.

You are just wrong... stop. AEW is #1 on cable on Wednesdays most weeks. That's not "niche"... they have a strong audience in the demos that matter.

 

[krackdagawd]

before it was they won't hit 1 milly for dynamite now 1 milly in their B show is light work


add this up to the millions and millions of youtube views


Khan made wrasslin great again

 

[TheGreatShowtime]

Who tried to downplay it though

You made the assumption from my comment and made more out of what I said when I was just making an observation. I could care less about continuing this conversation as that wasn't even my original intent when I made that comment that you seem to have taken offense to.

You literally said...

Ehhhhh if we're being honest, those numbers are quite disappointing considering all the hype around his return

Goes to show that social media views and clicks don't actually translate into people watching the actual product.

But okay, to each their own I guess

 

[methodz]

People comparing this to the WWE are delusional. Imagine the XFL survived and started selling out arenas and had similar ticket sales in multiple areas when compared to the NFL. And suddenly the 10 billion dollar TV deal the NFL now has a competitor getting 60-85% of their demo number, the one things that matters the most to networks and at 1/10th of the cost.

Imagine, that happened, that this new company caught up to the NFL in 2 years, imagine. Well, that's where AEW is compared to the WWE, a so called behemoth of network TV. In 2 years, I personally gave them 10 years to get to where they're at and that's if they survived the first 6 months.

AEW's demo on that episode of Rampage was almost 1/1 vs Smackdown that's on Fox which is in 40 million more households. The needle has been moving since day one but on Friday it sprinted.

 

[krackdagawd]

idk why dudes are surprised regardless if the mma move was a failure what wasn't a failure was his ppv #s. Bet the next aew ppv does great numbers too.

 

[Heretic]

Nahhhhhhh breh

It was the worst kept secret that he was going to show up as even entertainment sites were promoting and speaking of his return beforehand. Let's not sit here and pretend like things don't leak out all the time in the entertainment world and this is instance was an exception.

I pretty much stopped watching wrestling years ago. I tuned in(on youtube) and I had no idea about his return until my brother told me and I missed it live. I saw it on youtube and I'm sure lots of others were in the same boat. I didn't even know what day and time it came on, that's how out of the loop I was.

 

[NoMorePie]

Let's pretend smackdown don't exist for a minute.

If Rampage was 8-9 instead of 10-11, it would have cleared 1.5 easily.

 

[dh86]

A statistical dead heat with NFL preseason football. Not just any football, Patrick Mahomes

 

[TrueEpic08]

Let's preface this by saying that people knew that Punk was coming. It was open knowledge that he was coming. Spoilers and leaks happen all the time in the entertainment and TV world and the wrestling isn't the exception to that.

1.5+ million viewers would have been a success IMO with how much people hype up CM Punk to be this major star and ratings draw. Wrestling is a niche industry and it's been that way for years now. Look at those entertainment sites that posted about his return and barely any comments compared to other shows and entertainment news that they talk about.

Yeah online viewership is cool and call, but it doesn't mean that those people will actually watch and consume the product after. The mystique of his return is what drawed in some of those viewers and there's no guarantee that they will even stay.

Let's not sit here and pretend like the masses care about wrestling or even CM Punk like that the way you'd have wrestling fans believing.

See, this isn't actually true. We had good reason to believe that Punk would be there, but no confirmation before he came out that he would be there. That distinction is important when it comes to promotion. It's the difference between saying "yeah, he might be here" and "he's definitely gonna be here." At no point did they say the latter.

Also, you wanted Punk to double the previous week's viewing audience by himself? No one's doing that...I can't even remember any show ever getting a 100% week-to-week ratings increase based on ONE person's appearance or ONE event that wasn't some kind of finale. To think Punk was going to do that is insane.

And I'd like to see where this hype about Punk's star power came from, because I didn't see it in the last few months. A star, yes, but one that's somewhere between pre-Marvel Batista and pre-Hollywood Cena in terms of star power (closer to Cena than Batista, arguably). To think that someone like that was going to double their viewership numbers, especially in a 10 PM Friday timeslot, is a lot to me. I thought anything above 1 million would have been a success, personally, and they cleared that fairly easily (1.3 million for his segment even more so). Remember that AEW is only so well-known as a wrestling product, this is the first truly huge move they've made besides existing period.

Given all that, 1.5 million seems like a kind of unreasonable target. They did well enough, and hopefully some of those fans will stick around for the long haul.

 

[NoMorePie]

A statistical dead heat with NFL preseason football. Not just any football, Patrick Mahomes

Do you think Rampage ratings are sustainable at the current time slot?

 

[Saysumthinfunnymike]

A statistical dead heat with NFL preseason football. Not just any football, Patrick Mahomes

And blew out FOX News ass during the height of the Afghanistan fukkery... Anyone tryna say that's not a great number is crazy

 

[reserved_one]

They never once said Punk was signed or would show up.

Dropped the vaguest of easter eggs, hints, and clues alluding to it, but never said shyt.

And not only is he already one of their best merch movers, he's possibly solidified himself as their top draw. Off of ONE appearance.

They did this shyt perfectly and it played out better than anyone could've possibly hoped.

Let’s all just hope and pray that AEW doesn’t fukk this up lol. They gotta be very careful on how they handle this going forward but they got all the momentum in pro wrestling right now.

 

[KFBF]

Not up on the ratings shyt. How often does the WWE get the same or similar ratings?

 

[Carl Tethers]

I'll admit Tony Khan was booker of the week for this shyt

 

[Max.]

One of my fav new tsc lies

“Nobody knew cm punk was showing up”


-TSC

these cacs stay making shyt up…lmao…HUGE pop…sells all the shirts…gives out ice cream…in the united center for a hometown guy! biggest return of one the most popular wrestlers comes back after 8 years off









and u farted out 1.1 million… …i actually think dynamite will do better than than 1.1 mill…too bad after a while punk wont be on every week and his contract is for 10-12 matches a year