AEW Collision suffered a gut punch over the weekend scoring its lowest audience to date airing against WWE Payback.
The September 2 episode from Chicago went live hours after the news that CM Punk had been terminated by the company with Tony Khan addressing his reasoning at the beginning of the broadcast.
The show averaged a series-low 345,000 viewers and 165,000 (0.11) in the 18-49 demographic, per Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics.
Beyond the Payback competition, Collision also aired against college football games on ABC, CBS, and NBC, as well as Fox’s MLB coverage, per Spoiler TV.
In the 18-49 demo, females dropped by 39% this week to 42,000 viewers and men fell 23% to 103,000.
Adults 18-34 saw a major decline of 35%, largely attributed to males falling by 44% to 22,000 viewers while the female loss was 19%.
Adults 35-49 decreased by 27% to 80,000 viewers with females representing the larger percentage of decline with a 48% drop from 48,000 to 25,000 viewers this week.
With the return of college football, Saturday nights are going to be tougher each week throughout the season but it is also clear how significant running against WWE events are going to be with this month’s show performing much lower than the August 5 episode that aired against SummerSlam. The next WWE events are NXT No Mercy on September 30 and Fast Lane on October 7.
This will be compounded by the loss of CM Punk, who Collision had been built around since the show’s launch in June.
Wrestlenomics reports that the peak quarter was the opening fifteen minutes where Tony Khan started the show and was followed by the angle between Ricky Starks and Ricky Steamboat and the surprise return of Bryan Danielson with 472,000 viewers and 234,000 in the demo. Those numbers fell 19% and 29% respectively in the second quarter.
CORRECTION: We previously listed the LSU vs. Florida State college football game as airing on Saturday night, it aired on Sunday night and has been updated.
