The professional wrestling industry is facing major confusion and concern following Nielsen’s rollout of a new television ratings methodology, which has caused a steep decline in the reported viewership of top wrestling programs such as WWE NXT and AEW Dynamite.
Nielsen recently implemented its new “Big Data + Panel” system, which combines information from its traditional 42,000-household panel with data collected from more than 45 million households and 75 million devices. While the goal was to create a more accurate picture of TV audiences, the change has led to dramatically lower reported numbers for wrestling shows compared to the previous panel-only method.
Under the new system, this week’s WWE NXT on The CW averaged 572,000 viewers and a 0.10 rating in the 18–49 demographic – a 41% drop from the previous week. Nielsen’s previous methodology would have rated that same episode at around 0.16, indicating a much smaller decrease.
AEW Dynamite also saw a major decline, averaging 465,000 viewers and a 0.09 rating in the 18–49 demo – marking its lowest number ever for a regularly scheduled episode. While both shows went head-to-head with a high-rated New York Yankees vs. Boston Red Sox playoff game, industry insiders believe the new Nielsen system is the main cause of the sudden drop.
In a report for Wrestling Observer, Dave Meltzer broke down the demographic impact for AEW Dynamite, noting that male viewers aged 18–34 were down 66%, female viewers 18–34 were down 57%, and males 35–49 dropped 27% — though women 35–49 rose by 16%.
Meltzer called the new measurement method a “disaster for pro wrestling,” warning that it could distort the perception of wrestling’s popularity among younger audiences.
“While nothing in reality has changed, these numbers are going to be viewed over the long term with the conclusion that young people don’t watch wrestling,” Meltzer wrote. “And that’s a very bad conclusion when the vast majority of revenue comes from television.”
Speaking further on Wrestling Observer Radio, Meltzer explained that the new Nielsen approach was expected to boost sports ratings, not hurt them – yet wrestling has proven to be an outlier.
“The idea was that football would get an artificial boost,” Meltzer said. “Sports is up and wrestling is down a lot… I haven’t seen anything else down at the level of wrestling.”
He added that the consequences extend far beyond weekly TV bragging rights:
“This is tens and hundreds of millions of dollars that these ratings mean to these companies – not just in ad rates, but in value on the next deals. And this undercuts it greatly going forward. You go from being a star performer to an also-ran.”
Meltzer pointed to NXT ratings as an example of the damage the new data could cause.
“The new number is a 0.10, which looks terrible. But under the old system, it’s a 0.16 – which is actually a strong number. So people see that 0.10 and go, ‘Oh, my God, this invasion angle is tanking.’ And it’s actually not.”
Despite stable ticket sales and merchandise numbers, the new ratings system has created a perception problem that could harm both WWE and AEW’s long-term television value. With their biggest revenue tied to broadcast and streaming deals, both companies are now trying to understand why wrestling has been disproportionately affected – and what it means for the future of televised wrestling.
