Behind The NXT Contracts Expiring, AEW Beating WWE In Ticket Sales

Many Superstars are seeing deals come up, so let’s get behind all the NXT contracts expiring this year. Plus, AEW is beating WWE in ticket sales, head to head.

Behind The NXT Contracts Expiring

It seems there’s one ending every week, so let’s get behind the NXT contracts expiring in numbers this year.

To be blunt, it seems many contracts expiring now, are actually related to when NXT moved to the USA Network back in 2019.

Some Superstars, like Johnny Gargano, had a chance back then to sign on for a new, longer deal. Pete Dunne waited it out, and he only just re-signed.

However, knowing that the NXT brand had just moved and was going live on a major cable network, a number of Superstars opted to bet on themselves.

Meaning, rather than take the offer in 2019, perhaps some figured that by the time their contracts were expiring, the new TV deal would give them a chance for a more lucrative offer than ever.

While the logic at that point seemed sound…things really did not work out as many might have expected.

For one thing, the world is still recovering from a global pandemic, which saw wrestling promotions work in empty arenas.

WWE has, over the last year or so, released or otherwise lost a significant amount of talent. Those losses have largely been called cost cutting moves.

NXT has been particularly challenged. WWE only just initiated a re-branding of sorts.

The brand has been overhauled, with an entirely new look and feel. There is a renewed emphasis on younger, fresher, home-grown talent.

This NXT 2.0 makes some more established Superstars-like Gargano-wonder where they fit in the long-term plan.

So, quite a few NXT Superstars opted not to sign on for longer deals in 2019, and things didn’t work out quite yet.

On the flip side, should any of those soon-to-be free agents decide they’d rather be elsewhere anyways…AEW has become quite established now.

So, there is an alternative…

AEW Beating WWE In Ticket Sales

And speaking of that alternative…how about AEW beating WWE in ticket sales.

Not just random ticket sales…but in a specific arena.

That means this is, in a sense, an apples to apples comparison.

The arena in question is the not-yet-open UBS Arena, future home of the NHL New York Islanders.

Both WWE and AEW are heading to the arena late in 2021.

Per social media account @WrestleTix, here’s how advanced ticket sales are looking…

So, with a couple months left…AEW has sold more than twice as many tickets in the same arena.

Could this be ticket pricing? Or is this purely indicative of people being more interested in one product versus the other?

I’d bet, one way or the other, that both shows end up as sell-outs, or very nearly so, by the time the shows go off.

Still, for all of Vince McMahon’s blustering, claiming AEW is not competition…so many signs say otherwise.