>>5898695The PPV buy-rates were going up year on year, before CM Phil. Let's compared some numbers -
DON 2019 - 109.000 - 113.000 (First Time)
AO 2019 - 101.000 (First Time)
FG 2019 - 100.000 (First Time)
REV 2020 - 100.000 - 105.000 (First Time)
(Pandemic shows)
DON 2020: - 115,000–120.000 (Up by a minimum of 6000 or a maximum of 11.000)
AO 2020 - 100.000 - 110.000 (Increase of 9000)
FG 2020 - 100.000 (No Growth)
REV 2021 - 125.000 (Up by 20.000)
DON 2021 - 135.000 - 150.000 (Up by 15.000 to 30.000)
All Out 2021 - (Punk's arrival - 205.000.)
Okay, so let's unpack this. We've seen the PPVs this year grow by about 10k. So if Punk is the draw, he "drew" only 45k extra buys and that's assuming people paid just for Punk and I wasn't applying the same growth from 2019 to 2020.
So that's the best-case scenario for Punk and it's only 45k - which is 5k less than what he brought in for his Main Event match against MJF FIRST TIME EVER - two months of build.
FG 2021 - 145.000 (an increase of 45K, which is great - but I would say the draw here was Hangman vs Omega.)
Rev 2022 - (Big Increase here - 165.000 to 173.000. Increase of 50k. But again, Hangman is the Champion here.)
DON 2022 (numbers aren't out yet. So I'll be curious to see what happens and I'll be even more curious about the numbers now that Phil is the champion).
So, what's the point here? 1, AEW was growing regardless of CM Phil. 2, Hangman was a legit draw. 3, for the amount of money CM Punk has been given and how he's treated by TK, 50k is laughable.
Honest question to the CM Phil fans. Imagine it was John Cena who joined. Do you think All Out would have been up by 50K or 100K?
Food for thought.