>>19218066
The profits aren't coming from increased viewership though.
What people don't understand about WWE's business model is that viewers aren't the customers. They're the actual product.
The real customers are the advertisers, who pay to gain access to those viewers' eyes. The viewer base is preexisting, the shows just have to be good enough to keep those viewers tuning in.
But they're tuning in less and less. That's less reach for advertisers, which means they are going to pay less. Which likely means increasing the number of ads at a lower cost to keep the money flowing in, which in turn likely means more slopification.
AEW sucks because it's a wrestling company run by a guy who doesn't know how to run a wrestling company. WWE sucks because it's largely shifted its business model away from being a traditional wrestling company. "Smarks" aren't killing wrestling. Bad business is.
