Average 2019 Attendances: AEW Tops Out (With Caveat), MLW Has Biggest Year Yet

– With 2019 coming to a close, the average attendance numbers for most wrestling companies are available and AEW tops out (with a big caveat). The WON reports that the yearly attendance averages for some of the biggest US companies are as follows:

* AEW: 6,200 (5,701 paid)
* WWE: 4,600 to 4,700
* NJPW: 2,698 (2,648 in the US)
* MLW: 1,457
* ROH: 1,082

There are a lot of details to give context here, it must be said. AEW’s numbers are a result of them running so few shows; the WON reports that just averaging out Raw would result in a higher attendance than AEW, for example, and that CMLL’s Friday night shows at Arena Mexico average over 6,000 fans. So the stat is a very misleading one, though it does make 2019 the first time in a long time that WWE was beat out by a US-based wrestling promotion for average attendance. WWE still has 10 shows to go including a Raw and Smackdown taping, as well as tonight’s Madison Square Garden show, which is the reason for the variance based on expected numbers for those shows.

NJPW’s numbers in the US are inflated by the ROH/NJPW Madison Square Garden show; taking that out of the equation brings the average down to about 1,500. Similarly, if you take that number out of ROH’s shows than the company’s average falls to 707 which is the lowest number in many years, where as the 1,082 is the third best in company history behind 2018 (1,215) and 2017 (1,106).

MLW’s numbers are the best in its history by far, though it must be said that those numbers are because of few shows (only 11 in total), all of which are TV tapings.