>>11336792But we're talking about completely different marketplaces. Amazon's Get Big Quick strategy famously sacrificed profitability for sale and brand, you're right. But the thing you're failing to consider is that the reason Amazon did this was because their market was literally just invented and it was a race to the top.
Wrestling is a mature and established market already, with a monopoly position. Get Big Quick already happened in wrestling when Vince bought the territories due to introduction of national cable networks. There was a bunch of small companies each competing for a newly established marketplace - so it works there.
But AEW enters a marketplace where they are the defacto number two just by existing. Brand value and size growth is important but not majorly so, they started at number two and realistically they'll be number two for many years no matter how good or bad their booking is.
AEW like every business needs to establish profitability because even billionaires are not content with throwing money after bad. It's also a risk management strategy - any company that relies on a single investor instead of profitability dies when that investor gets on a car crash or becomes ill or gets bored. There has to be rationality to business actions. The fact that not only has AEW burned through a $100m start up cost but has also continued to haemorrhage should be extremely concerning for every wrestling fan.
It's important AEW succeeds whether you like them or not. WWE are the only wrestling company to turn a regular profit in the last 40 years and that's an extremely bad look for the future of the business as a whole because wrestling is better with competition than without. We cannot have the only way to run a wrestling is to be a trust fund baby with a Dad who has loss patience. AEW has to shoe a path to profitability for the good of the industry.
