Backstage News On Internal Reaction To AEW Collision Rating Over NBA All-Star Weekend

AEW officials are happy with how "AEW Collision: Grand Slam Australia" did in the ratings despite airing around three hours after its usual timeslot due to the NBA's All-Star Weekend. According to Fightful Select, AEW averaged around 500,000 viewers for the show, and that's without AEW viewership numbers on Max available.

The outlet spoke to sources at "AEW Dynamite" on Wednesday who said that AEW President Tony Khan and others were "very happy" with AEW's number, as well as the lead-in, and the buzz around Grand Slam. Fightful reported that Khan was vocal about believing it was "one of the better stretches of 'Collision'" the company had run. WBD sources told Fightful that there are likely to be more situations like this weekend when it comes to big lead-ins for "Collision" if they believe the partnership can benefit from it.

The first eight minutes of the show, featuring Kenny Omega and Will Ospreay's match against The Don Callis Family's Konosuke Takeshita and Kyle Fletcher, had around one million viewers thanks to the NBA lead-in. It was the first quarter hour that topped a million viewers for AEW in 2025, according to Wrestlenomics data from a Nielson source. Wrestlenomics confirmed the show did very well compared to a normal episode of "Collision," despite its start time of 10:52 pm EST. There was a big rise in the key 18-49 demographic for the episode, with a 110% increase from last week.

AEW was reportedly happy with the turnout in Australia before even leaving the country. Khan appeared before the crowd ahead of "Collision" and said that the company would be back to the country in 2026.