Wrestling With High TV Ratings

Over the past 10 days, the state of professional wrestling TV ratings has reached new heights.

The May 3 episode of Raw took down the No. 1 spot on cable television. Then, AEW Dynamite: Blood and Guts achieved its first No. 1 cable ranking. As if that wasn’t enough, the ensuing throwback-themed episode of SmackDown finished first in network television that night.

You all have heard the cliché – there has never been a better time to be a pro wrestling fan. By many accounts, that sentiment is very real. However, I can’t remember a time where pro wrestling swept the ratings wars on not one, not two, but three different nights in a given week. Data such as this leaves many fans asking the same question: what does it all mean, and are television ratings an accurate representation of the health and quality of a pro wrestling show in 2021?

In one sense, the sheer dominance of pro wrestling programming last week can’t be seen as anything but a good thing. Given the types of shows pro wrestling typically has to compete for television time with (reality TV, political talk shows, etc.), the ratings show that wrestling is still a preferred medium, particularly in the 18-49 demographic. This bodes extremely well for the future of weekly televised pro wrestling on cable. Networks of all kinds are starting to see that wrestling is not an outdated form of entertainment and can work wonders in the key demos.

In fact, it’s fair to say there is a distinct possibility AEW starts production on a second weekly show on TNT or TBS before the end of the year. If AEW is able to carve out an audience on not one, but two nights out of the week, it would not be difficult to envision a cavalcade of networks vying for pro wrestling shows. Remember when Jeff Jarrett couldn’t convince a reputable network to take on Global Force Wrestling? Those days are long in the rearview mirror.

That’s all fine and dandy, and positive for the health of pro wrestling in the mainstream. However, there is an ugly side to this news as well: Raw is still a terrible show, and I fear the recent ratings bump is only going to enable the powers that be to continue producing bad television.

Vince McMahon can’t actually believe the ongoing Alexa Bliss angle is “good shit,” can he? The WWE has a long history of cobbling together tawdry, controversial segments which, in many cases, can serve as a good substitute for Ambien. Do you remember Bayley’s “This is Your Life,” which also featured Alexa Bliss? How about “The Old Day?” “Bobby Lashley’s sisters?” What about “‘Rosie O’Donnell’ vs.’ Donald Trump’?” I can do this all day, but I’d rather not out of fear of triggering some dark memories.

What I can say, without a shadow of a doubt, is that nobody in the 18-49 demo, nor in the 50+ demo, saw any of those segments as “good shit.” If anything, those segments can be classified as “bad shit,” or just plain “shit” since I’ve yet to see what “good shit” actually looks like.

All joking aside, Raw is bad and not just in the way that Star Wars: The Last Jedi was bad, or Joss Whedon’s Justice League was bad, where the beauty is somewhat in the eye of the beholder. It is objectively bad and has been for quite some time. This is not a piece that’s meant to pick apart Raw. It’s just a subtle reminder that the uptick in television ratings is truly a double-edged sword – and that’s if you’re the type of person to put any stock in them.

Overall, I’m not sure what to make of it. Ratings seem to mean different things to different companies, and it is definitely not the only way to determine success. WWE, in a normal year, can generate nearly $500 million in revenue when factoring in merchandise sales, television rights deals, Saudi Arabia shows and the newly added Peacock deal, and that is in the face of a massive operating cost. Because such a large percentage of that money is guaranteed from year-to-year, do television ratings even matter?

Does anything WWE does matter? As long as there’s no breach of the agreements with NBCUniversal and Fox, WWE can realistically trot out whatever type of television show it pleases on Mondays and Fridays, and for fans, particularly lifelong WWE fans, that is extremely troubling. The ratings clearly mean more to a product like AEW’s, which is looking to build credibility as Dynamite is still in its infancy.

Time will tell if the recent swell in wrestling TV ratings becomes a positive or a negative for the industry. For now, wrestling fans just need to sit back and enjoy the shows (to the best of their ability). The last 14 months have been grueling to say the least, but as long as fans are fans while still holding the companies they love accountable for all the bad television they produce, the arrow of the industry as a whole will continue pointing upward.

In the meantime, I’ll be looking to educate myself further on what the ratings mean for one of my favorite forms of entertainment.