Bryan Danielson vs. Minoru Suzuki added to 10/15 AEW Rampage BUY-IN

Originally published at Bryan Danielson vs. Minoru Suzuki added to 10/15 AEW Rampage BUY-IN

Danielson vs. Suzuki on 10/15.

Earlier today, AEW President Tony Khan announced that along with Rampage airing live on Friday at 10 PM EST, one hour prior to the show airing on TNT, there is going to be a BUY-IN pre-show that airs on YouTube and it was announced that Bryan Danielson will be in action against Minoru Suzuki.

This will be Bryan’s fourth match in AEW and the following night on Saturday Night Dynamite, Bryan is going one-on-one with Bobby Fish.

Bobby Fish will be in action on the BUY-IN as well. He’ll be facing Lee Moriarty.

Ahead of a huge #AEWRampage show THIS Friday night at 10pm ET/9pm CT LIVE on TNT with @CMPunk vs. @MattSydal + Jericho/Hager/@sammyguevara vs. Sky/Page/Dos Santos w/ @GamebredFighter, we’re open Friday Live with The Buy In online at 9 ET/8 CT @suzuki_D_minoru vs. @bryandanielson! https://t.co/bqzCO6Ps9e

— Tony Khan (@TonyKhan) October 12, 2021

POST Wrestling will have coverage of Rampage and SmackDown on 10/15 and following both events, we’ll be live with our POST-show.

This may be the greatest preshow match ever and it’s not even close

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I’d like to report a missing @Alex_Patel
paging Dr. Alex Patel
Surely this above is an imposter :wink:

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HOLY SHOT!!! This made my day, I def immediately stormed my gf home office to tell her lol we’re excited for Friday!

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Hahaha. If you aren’t hyped for this then you are either dead or not a wrestling fan.

Kaze ni Nare and flight of valkayires. If only we had final countdown would have been perfect. Going to be incredible

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Hopefully since it’s on YouTube, they’ll be zero commercials or breaks during the match.

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Has anyone looked at what’s more widely available, YouTube or FS1 :joy:

If AEW sells a presenting sponsorship and monetize the free Buy In this is a home fcking run. Even if they don’t, the chance to draw eyeballs to your product by using one of most recognized stars in wrestling on your YouTube platform is a content strategy the likes wrestling fans brains aren’t familiar with because for so long it’s been YouTube = inferior and just a place to rack up massive VOD statistics to regurgitate on investor presentations

I strongly encourage people to watch Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston and founder of Wrestlenomics Chris Herrington on YouTube discuss AEWs view of content on YouTube. Wrestlenomics Radio: AEW SVP Chris Harrington visits Brandon Thurston to talk wrestling business - YouTube

How I see the strategies: As a growth company this is an important strategy to grow viewers, younger viewers, and demonstrate audience for future monetization

I contrast this to WWE who derives a fraction of total revenue from YouTube and have already monetized the data in the form of the Network and TV rights and now just dump content there for ongoing consumer engagement and brand presence.

If AEW can use Friday to demonstrate demand by an audience it’s going to help down the road negotiate max value. If WWE has a viral video, that’s already baked in to their financials and rights deals and it’s likely not changing anything going forward. WWE has to be on YouTube where AEW wants to be / similar to NWA who view it as not just a place to reach audience but to build their revenue streams (current and future)

Now obviously this is reactionary by TK but maybe this proves to work and he does it more frequently when Rampage is taped live and not after Dynamite. Maybe this grows into a touring version of Rampage and can do real attendance revenue. So while reactionary it’s not without potential upside for business decisions. One step further is that WWE turned the lights on these companies this Friday with their move so why not take advantage of it if you are TK. It’s being offered to you like a slow pitch and you have the power to hit a home run and give fans something they want. This is being a good CEO and hitting on all cylinders vs reactive slow and stale. Love it

The answer: almost 320mil people have Internet in America vs 80-85mil people have FS1…naturally the Internet is World Wide

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Nailed it. I’ve been saying for a long time that establishing real credibility on YouTube with weekly programming would pay off in the long run for AEW. And it’s also why they can afford to have such a massive, bloated roster. Dark and Elevation have been sneaky-good watches for a long time now, with the added benefit of being on-demand at all times.

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Training and building a reoccurring audience is a strategy that can then be sold to streamers looking for cheaper content. WWE had some inroads with this on Facebook but that died out and I’d guess was meaningless to the bottom line. Whereas AEW still could meaningfully benefit from getting a promoting sponsor of the Rampage Buy-In, or run more Friday live shows that are profitable, etc.

It also ostensibly acts as their development system for younger talents, without having to spit in the face of a major television network by delivering a lesser product. I can’t imagine USA Network is too impressed that NXT has been morphed into the NBA’s G-League overnight.

Yeah, this was a risk of WWE doing NXT 2.0 without proof of concept. But WWE has enough market research to know it’s core audience isn’t tuning out. I think it’s evident early on it is not going to grow a new audience, but WWE trusted it’s core base would tune in regardless (the old, stamp Mickey Mouse ears on shit and people will buy it regardless strategy)

I think that is why we quickly saw NXT on USA become more main-roster like with booking and some of the acts they brought in (Balor, the 2019 Survivor Series stuff)… but WWE had a strategy with NXT and it morphed into a meaningful TV deal. So isn’t that what the AEW Youtube strategy is. Build an audience for it’s content that can then get sold as rights fees…the strategy with NXT on the Network had done this very well, and should get proper credit

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