10 Genius Ways Tony Khan Can Get The AEW Magic Back
8. Bring Back Prop-Heavy PPV Sets
This might read as weird, since the previous slide made the opposite point entirely, but the TV audience differs from the paying audience.
There's no such thing as the "casual" fan, but AEW has established a viewership ceiling that they’ve not reached in quite some time. It's very plausible that these floating voters tuned into AEW when the buzz was at its loudest - the period immediately following All Out 2021 - and felt that the show looked smaller and less impressive than they might have been led to believe. Updating the look of Dynamite and Rampage may well prove crucial in making it feel big again, but PPV is different.
Since they cost a packet, obviously, nobody is paying that fee to sample a product that they could simply watch on TV. PPV is the arena where the hardcore fans are indulged. It's where they watch the biggest matches, it's where they erupt at the highest stakes, it's where they get what they've been asking for - and people since the dawn of time have been asking for unique, prop-heavy sets. This is where AEW can get away with a bit of nostalgia, while at the same time differentiating the shows as special and distinct from TV.
Such props aren't just comforting exercises in remember-when: across the first two Double Or Nothing shows, they doubled as destructible environments that drove the creativity of classic angles (Jon Moxley's debut) and matches (Mox Vs. Mr. Brodie Lee).