All wrong.
Every other metric shows decline too. At least the ones that are comparable. House shows averaged over 10k at WWE's peak and they are averaging under 5k in 2015. That's a 50% decline. Even before the WWE Network, PPV (besides the Major 4) were in a steep decline. They were averaging 400-600K PPV buys a month in their peak and dropped to the 200-300K range before the network upended their PPV business.
Where WWE is better off is their structure. TV Networks weren't paying for wrestling until after the Monday Night Wars so they've been able to turn that into a huge revenue source. They're obviously publicly traded now and have a movie studio, etc. The Network is another part of it. Wrestling is less popular and that's not debatable, but WWE has managed to put themselves in prime position to make a lot of money off the people that still watch. Social media engagement is part of the puzzle in terms of keeping those fans engaged.
That's all great for WWE but it's wrong to look at that and conclude WWE is gaining popularity because they aren't. There's no way they should be doing worse at a time where they have no competition and more resources and talent than they've ever had. But somehow they are.
House show attendance in the late 90s vs house shows now isn't really a fair comparison either. Think about how much better the economy was. Think of the fewer entertainment options back then. If you wanted to see wrestling other than when it was on TV, you pretty much had to go to the house shows.
PPV buys isn't at all apples to apples either. Have any idea how much easier it is to stream them live for free? Was internet even fast enough from 1997-2001 to stream?
I wouldn't say it's as popular as it was at it's peak, but it's definitely more popular than it was 5-10 years ago. I really don't see how you can say they aren't gaining popularity. Revenue is kind of a "scoreboard" for that and it's up. That's not all WWE getting more sophisticated with how they make money, it's a lot to do with people genuinely like it.
The PG product gets shit on, but honestly, it's better than the attitude era IMO. Attitude Era was a jerry springer undercard with great main events (sometimes). I dare anyone to go back and watch those shows and watch the modern shows. In ring quality is better and the storylines aren't as trashy.
Obviously, that's all subjective. However, I don't know if you'd have such mass media coverage like this if WWE didn't fix their reputation as being Jerry Springer/trash TV. Which it admittedly still gets from time to time.
The most interesting part about the article to me is that they talk about how people get shamed out of being wrestling fans. That is definitely true. I think that with WWE's more athletic/less steroided talent, and their better publicity, combined with it generally being pretty good over the last 2 years, there's less shaming. Now on social media when someone says "you know it's fake right" you see about 12 people shut them down.
It's a good time to be a wrestling fan. Even if some of us are perpetually negative.
Edit: I'm going to articulate this for the last time. RATINGS DON'T MATTER. They matter to an extent, that was hyperbole. However, when cable itself will probably be dead in 10-20 years, who gives a shit about ratings? People under 40 generally don't have cable. I haven't had cable in 5 years. Most people I know don't have cable. Cable is garbage. Of course ratings are down. When an entire industry is dying at something like 10% a year and the only people clinging onto it are 70 year old Fox News viewers, why would WWE care all that much about ratings?
