Thoughts on AEW working with Impact

 Thoughts on AEW working with Impact

AEW is working with Impact now. Why? Who knows. There's been some theories like:

1) Impact can give AEW some new fans

2) Talent exchanges

3) It generates buzz

4)  AEW wants to re-create the territory system.

I don't buy the first theory that AEW can get new fans off of Impact. First of all, Impact draws 100,000-200,000 viewers a show. These are minuscule numbers in a country that has 350,000,000 people. Impact has a really small base to pull from. And the idea that none of these people know of or watch AEW is silly since Impact already is something you have to go out of your way to see. How many people are there really in Impact who don't watch or don't know of AEW? I think like maybe 1,000 tops. I think these people know what AEW is and I bet many Impact fans do watch it and I bet many don't because they aren't interested in it.

On the second point of AEW exchanging talent with Impact, I guess it is a possibility. But AEW already has 80+ people on their roster with the majority of them never getting much TV time. AEW doesn't need new people when they can't do much with what they already have. And if I was someone like Private Party or Shawn Spears, I'd be mad that tv time was going to someone else who didn't even work for the company. And since Impact has such a small fanbase, I don't think there's enough interest there to have dream matches because who really is dreaming of some of these matches but a small number of people? This isn't Austin vs Goldberg here there's some match that EVERYONE wants to see but just isn't going to happen. Many of these matches probably already happened on shows nobody saw.

Onto the third point of it generating buzz, sure it did just that. I can't fault that. I just don't know how many dollars that will translate into.

The last point I also see often. People say that AEW wants to re-create the territory system by working with smaller promotions. The problem is that this isn't 1970 anymore. Anyone can go watch Impact, MLW, ROH or whoever else. They all have shows online or on tv or through various VOD services. People just don't care or don't have the money/time. Back in 1970, a fan in the Texas area wasn't going to see AWA ever unless they went to Minnesota, so when wrestlers went to new places they could reach new fanbases. This isn't the case anymore. Anyone can watch these promotions already and I have a feeling a large amount of the people who watch AEW or these promotions already do watch other promotions.

I also think it's really dumb for AEW to work with promotions smaller than them and try to direct people to their shows. What if people watch these promotions and enjoy them? There's only so much care and so many hours in the week. You can't watch everything and some people may just say, "I'm watching Impact instead this week". And what is even worse is that AEW was directing people to watch Impact this week while their AEW Dark show was live on youtube. That's just nonsense.

Both promotions also do risk losing talent through this. Maybe Impact uses this partnership to get close with Private Party or Shawn Spears and tries to get them to sign with Impact. Maybe AEW sees how much Chris Bey gets over and wants to sign him. That's going to be the end of the partnership right there.

And then what happens if one of these promotions want to run the same night as the other? That's another set of problems. What happens if AEW wants The North for a show that Impact has them booked for already? Another problem. What happens if an AEW guy gets injured on an Impact show? Another problem.

Overall, I see this as a high risk and low reward situation that clearly benefits Impact more than AEW and shouldn't be pursued.