It is tough to quantify for us run-of-the-mill fans because we do not have in-house data.
However, it is pretty easy to quantity:
- Merch sold (probably the most direct one)
- Social media views/reaction
- Ratings on TV shows (how do they impact their quarter + the following one in a long period of time)
- PPV sales for when they main-event/are featured in a big match.
- Ticket sold for events in which they are the main "selling point" (does not apply that much these days, but for AEW in Montreal for example, you could look at the ticket sales before and after the Edge vs Christian announcement)
A guy like OC definitely moves merch. He is not good for live TV ratings and I would be surprised if anyone bought tickets to see an advertised match of is. Is he a guy you can build the company around? Probably not. That being said, even if he has strong metrics, Punk is probably not a guy you can trust long term. Rollins is, even though he won't be the draw a Roman Reigns is.
It is complex analysis unless it is obvious. The real needle movers are easy to spot. People that have more value than we instinctively think is a more difficult proposition.
Merch sold and
maybe social media views are the only ones I think you can really individualize. Even then, merch sold is hard to gauge between two different companies. I don't believe WWE releases
raw numbers beyond ranking their sellers and I don't know if AEW does either. (Do they still primarily go through PWT?) So, if LA Knight is WWE's #4 merch seller, does he still outsell AEW's #1 merch seller? We don't really know.
Another thing to consider with merch, though I don't know if this is still a thing... During Punk's last run, I believe it was Konnan that noted WWE was still claiming Cena was their top merch seller even though Punk was selling out merch booths and Cena still had product at the end of the night. Basically they were saying WWE was releasing way more Cena gear compared to Punk gear, so Punk would "Sell out" and his total would be capped, while Cena had more merch to actually sell.
Ratings you can look at trends, but at the end of the day there's still a lot you can question. If you shared a quarter with another segment, which one caused the dip/spike? Did a quarter decline/raise because of the person/people in that quarter, or because of the quarter that preceded or followed it? For instance, if OC follows MJF and his quarter dips, does it indicate OC is a ratings killer, or did it just dip because MJF is a proven draw?
I'd have to go back through some historical quarterly ratings, which are hard to find if you're not paying Brandon Thurston. But the two AEW trends that are well documented are that MJF consistently pops a rating (Or the audience falls off after his segment ends) and The Young Bucks consistently kill a quarter.
Tickets sold are hard to gauge too, simply based on the fact that they can be influenced by the overall product. For instance, attendance is pretty much the worst it's ever been for AEW with MJF on top, but there's really no question that MJF is the top draw in the company.