This weekend AEW will invade the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas Nevada for their fourth-ever Double or Nothing pay-per-view.
Company president Tony Khan recently joined Sports Media with Richard Deitsch to hype up the annual event, as well as discuss a number of interesting topics regarding AEW’s third year in business.
Khan began by addressing the constant criticism of WWE Hall of Famer and former WCW president Eric Bischoff, who believes that AEW needs to do a better job at catering to the casual fan. Khan believes that Bischoff has a point, but thinks it is just as important to remember the hardcore fan.
“I think Eric’s point that you want to have a lot of fans is also valid. But my thoughts on it are – and you know this, some of this might relate to Eric’s experiences. But certainly, there were a lot of things that happened with the history of WCW, and the rise of WCW and then what became of it, that I think it’s really important to remember the hardcore fan.”
Hardcore Fans Have Helped AEW
On the subject of the hardcore fan Khan explains how vital they have been to AEW’s business growth, crediting their word-of-mouth and engagement with one another as a key reason he likes to make a product suitable for them.
“I think another great thing about the hardcore fan is the word of mouth. From when I started in high school, wrestling was not cool when I first got into high school as a function of what was happening with the world of wrestling. And before it had a chance to get really hot as a business, I made a few fans right off the bat as a virus spreading fan, just by being a hardcore, that would rope other people into watching wrestling with me.”
“And if you get some social people, what you can get is really good word of mouth, just like in the film industry and with TV shows, in which we are a TV show. So I think you can grow your TV show by having a big hardcore base that you service and support, but also by trying to spread the word and trying to not only spread the word of yourself and get out and engage with fans, but hopefully have the fans engaging with other fans.”
Ending his rant…Khan states that catering to all fans are important, especially for a young company, but does believe that turning those casuals into hardcores is the ultimate goal.
“And I think in general, all the fans are important, but you have to remember, again, you know, everybody has a beginning. So you want to make fans from the beginning and then hopefully try to make them into hardcore fans. I mean, the more hardcore fan somebody is, that’s good, right?”
Listen to Tony Khan’s appearance on the Sports Media Podcast:
This weekend’s Double or Nothing pay-per-view will be headlined by CM Punk challenging Adam Page for the AEW world championship.
(Thanks to WrestlingNews.Co for the quotes)
