Double or Nothing was originally scheduled to be held at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Paradise, Nevada on May 29, but was moved to Daily's Place and pushed back a day due to the pandemic.

It also garnered an estimated 135,000 pay-per-view buys, and generated over $6 million in revenue, which in turn made it the third highest grossing non-WWE professional wrestling PPV event since 1999.

It is held annually in May during Memorial Day weekend and is one of AEW's "Big Four" PPVs, which includes All Out, Full Gear, and Revolution, their four biggest domestic shows produced quarterly.

[5] Additionally, AEW held a Double or Nothing Fan Fest on May 29, featuring live stage shows, exhibition matches, meet and greets, and more.

[10] While AEW had plans to host the 2020 Double or Nothing at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on the Las Vegas Strip, which was where the original show emanated, the venue canceled the event due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

[11] In response, AEW announced that the 2020 event would still proceed as planned, which occurred at Daily's Place and the TIAA Bank Field stadium in Jacksonville, Florida.

The announcement also confirmed that a third Double or Nothing event would occur at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on May 29, 2021; in addition to offering refunds, tickets purchased for 2020's show would be valid for 2021.

[12] However, at Revolution on March 7, 2021, AEW announced that the 2021 Double or Nothing would instead be held at Daily's Place in Jacksonville due to the ongoing pandemic, and was moved back a day to May 30; as a result, the MGM Grand Garden Arena issued refunds for all originally purchased tickets.

[14] Storylines were produced on AEW's weekly television program, Dynamite, the supplementary online streaming shows, Dark and Elevation, and The Young Bucks' YouTube series Being The Elite.

[15] However, on the March 10, 2021 episode of Dynamite, MJF betrayed The Inner Circle and revealed that he had been secretly building his own group, named The Pinnacle (consisting of Shawn Spears, Wardlow, FTR (Dax Harwood and Cash Wheeler), and manager Tully Blanchard).

[17] On the April 7 episode of Dynamite, AEW World Tag Team Champions The Young Bucks (Matt Jackson and Nick Jackson) attacked Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston, and aligned themselves with their longtime friend Kenny Omega, as well as Omega's allies The Good Brothers (Doc Gallows and Karl Anderson) from Impact Wrestling.

[21] On the May 12 episode of Dynamite, The Young Bucks challenged Moxley and Kingston to a match at Double or Nothing with the AEW World Tag Team Championship on the line.

[18] On the May 12 episode of Dynamite, Miro defeated Darby Allin to win the AEW TNT Championship, and was afterwards confronted by Lance Archer.

[19] On the March 31 episode of Dynamite, Cody Rhodes was attacked by his former friend Q. T. Marshall, who allied himself with Nick Comoroto, Aaron Solow, and the newly debuted Anthony Ogogo to form a new faction dubbed The Factory.

[25] On the February 17 episode of Dynamite, Riho defeated Serena Deeb during the first round of the AEW Women's World Championship Eliminator Tournament.

[28] After this, commentator Tony Schiavone announced that WWE Hall of Famer Mark Henry would be joining AEW as an analyst for their upcoming show Rampage, which would begin airing in August on TNT.

[28] In the main event, The Inner Circle (Chris Jericho, Jake Hager, Sammy Guevara, Santana and Ortiz) faced The Pinnacle (MJF, Shawn Spears, Wardlow, Cash Wheeler and Dax Harwood) in a Stadium Stampede match.

In July, the promotion resumed live touring with their next PPV, All Out, scheduled to be held in September in Hoffman Estates, Illinois.