Matt Hardy discusses solutions to AEW's inability to draw fans
Matt Hardy recently talked about how AEW can draw more fans. The former WWE Superstar's contract expired in April 2024 and he had decided not to renew it. He played a major role in the Jacksonville-based promotion since his debut in 2020.
Recently, AEW viewership and ratings have been hitting lows. Despite delivering good matches every week, the audience has been decreasing.
While speaking on a recent episode of his Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast, the 49-year-old star claimed that AEW should focus on casual fans and should not be catering to their "niche audience."
“I think that you have to appeal to more casual fans. I mean, I understand your mindset where AEW is built on the context of having great matches and having five star matches and bangers and whatever else since the place is very wrestling heavy. If you love wrestling, where the best wrestle, you know, they’ve even used that as a catchphrase.(...) I feel like sometimes AEW plays and caters to too much of a niche audience sometimes and I think they just need to broaden who they play to sometimes," Matt Hardy said. [H/T WrestlingNews.co]
What steps the Tony Khan-led promotion takes to increase its viewership remains to be seen.
Matt Hardy recently claimed he was still interacting with AEW
While speaking on his Extreme Life of Matt Hardy podcast recently, Matt Hardy said that he was still interacting with AEW for a potential deal. However, his deal with the Jacksonville-based promotion expired on April 8, 2024.
"Sunday night, into Monday morning, that is when my contract expired. So yes, I am a free agent right now. Just negotiating, talking. I have interacted with everyone. Still interacting with AEW, and that's where we are right now. Whenever my deal ended up running out, that allowed me the opportunity to negotiate and speak to everyone available, you know, weigh in all my options, and that's what I'm doing right now," Matt Hardy said.
It will be interesting to see which wrestling promotion will the huge free agent move next.