They have over 150 contracted talents, most of whom wrestle no more than 3x per month, and several stars like Miro, Omega and Saraya that work a Roman-like schedule. Popular groups like Acclaimed and Bullet Club Gold rarely wrestle any more. AEW is confirmed by Forbes and Meltzer to be worth over $2,000,000,000 after just 5 years in existence, which is 5x more than WCW was ever worth....but they did House Shows (and also had the Power Plant, but that's another topic)

NJPW does house shows, WWE does them, AAA and CMLL do them. Is it possible AEW is actually a cash-strapped, failing company that can't afford to run house shows and we're being lied to? Or is something else going on?