Hopefully the first show is just to show off and then they'll scale it down. They definitely need to have lower expectations when it comes to attendance and ratings or they'll be tarping off half of each arena and having the camera side completely empty like WWE does.The core of the fanbase will still flu in for big events but with 52 tv tapings a year they obviously won't. Now even Raw and Smackdown sell 5-10k nowadays for the weekly tapings so I see AEW targeting 5k as a conservative and smart start.
Going for 20k weekly is straight delusion at this point, no promotion can pull it off
What was TNA doing ratings-wise in their early days on prime time cable? That's probably where they are going to sit for awhile. It's going to be a long, slow climb to build themselves up on TV and in attendance. I hope the Khans and TNT are ready for that.