While ticket prices for WWE events have increased dramatically over the past few years, AEW has capitalized on that by making its ticket prices much lower and affordable, even at the marquee pay-per-view events that the company holds throughout the year. This is something AEW President Tony Khan was asked about during a recent appearance on "The Ariel Helwani Show," as well the possibility of lowering the purchase price of pay-per-views, or even having them be part of a subscription service on HBO MAX for no extra cost.
"Something I've been really conscious of and have tried to stay consistent with is maintaining great prices for families and friends to come and watch the shows at an affordable price to be an AEW fan, and I think we've done a fantastic job with that" As for the price of pay-per-views, Khan is happy with the fact that the current price has stayed the same since 2019. "It's $49.99, and now you can get the events on lots of outlets that we've added over the years for that price of $49,99. Amazon Prime, YouTube, a lot of great places that are great partners, but our media partnership that really drives the engine that is AEW is AEW and Warner Brothers Discovery." Khan went on to remind everyone that HBO MAX subscribers also get the AEW pay-per-views at a discounted price of $39.99.
Khan would round off by showing his appreciation to those fans who do purchase all of the AEW pay-per-views, revealing that despite his immense wealth, he wasn't allowed to buy every wrestling pay-per-view when he was growing up due to their cost. He stated that is fully appreciative of the fans for sticking with AEW and spending their hard-earned money on their marquee events, but still wants to make them affordable to as many people as possible.
The ticket prices of AEW events was also factored into another question that Helwani asked. That being the recent announcement that WWE will be taking WrestleMania 43 to Saudi Arabia in 2027 and whether Khan thinks if AEW should run a major show that same weekend to cater to the North American fans. Khan explained that he is always trying to listen to the fans and what they want, hence why ticket prices for AEW events, even the ringside seats, are the cheapest around.
"We have different models when it comes to the distribution. I think that what we do is very good and it's been working for us," Khan said. "From the very beginning of AEW, whether it was on the beginning calls like before we'd ever done a live event talking about the original shows and saying before we'd ever done a Dynamite, being on the phone and Cody [Rhodes] was in some of these phone calls, and Matt and Nick [Jackson] and different people and talking about how I always wanted there to be tickets that were in that range of somewhere from $20 to $30 for the fans to get in to the TV shows every week. That was going to be a consistent theme in AEW and there still is inexpensive ticketing, and the get-in price is usually pretty fair compared to the competition.
Khan concluded by revealing that while negotiating the media rights deal with Warner Brothers Discovery in 2024, he found out that AEW was the sports league with highest spending fans when it came to streaming video per month. This means that more AEW fans are consistently spending money on streaming AEW shows than WWE, UFC, the NBA, NFL, MLB, and the PGA Tour.
Please credit "The Ariel Helwani Show" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
