>>5264604AEW are getting great viewership figures just doing what they're doing. Strategically there's very little to criticise AEW for - they have a specific audience that they're attempting to appeal to, and they appeal to them well.
AEWs biggest problem is perception. The WWE is an global behemoth of a wrestling company. Like a McDonalds or a Coke. They have decades of international TV coverage which they are able to monetise as part of business metrics, such as social media engagement, to drive sponsored events, OnDemand subscriptions and TV revenue. Comparing to two companies in any way is grossly unfair to both and AEW will always appear to be the weaker business.
But AEW has advantages over WWE. One of the problems that corporations have is a lack of "agility". Behemoth companies take 6 meetings, 3 conferences and 600 memos with CC to legal, creative, marketing, HR to get anything done. In AEW, Tony has the ability to be creative and exciting and change course when needed without having to worry about that.
To contrast; if the Cody situation would have happened in WWE then there would have been six months of back and forth and they probably would have re-signed him because he was important to their Italian market or because they believed the "brand" hasnt returned the company's investment yet. It's all metrics and markets. Khan has the ability to look entirely at the creative aspect and decide it had ran its course. Maybe not entirely but without shareholders to justify to, he can let a main eventer walk if he feels like the show won't suffer and can put more importance on product quality over the potential lost revenue.
The companies work in totally different ways.
AEW can print money if it can get its costs under control. The young upstart company taking money from the lumbering conservative giant too set in its ways to see the future is an often told story. IBM and Microsoft. Or Microsoft and Google. Or Google and Facebook.
