AEW CEO Tony Khan discusses the company’s negotiations for a new media rights deal, as their current agreement with Warner Bros Discovery is coming up in 2024. He also comments on AEW’s viewership.
Speaking with Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez on Wrestling Observer Radio, Tony Khan discussed AEW’s negotiations for their media rights and shared his belief that it would be a “great deal” for the company. Khan also noted that it was a “complex conversation” with several things that had to be talked about. Khan commented on AEW pay-per-views potentially coming to the Max streaming service. (H/t Ian Carey of F4WOnline.com)
“In addition to MAX, obviously, a lot of people are talking about Venu Sports,” Tony Khan said. “That’s a really unique opportunity,” Khan said.
Khan went on to comment on AEW’s relationship with WBD. He stated that having wrestling on TBS and TNT was important to him.
“I don’t think that Warner Bros has had such a hands-on boss who has overseen a studio like this since Ted Turner was here at TNT and TBS like we have with David (Zaslav),” Tony Khan said. “There is a supreme commander at the top of Warner Bros Discovery and he loves AEW and I have a great relationship with him and I think it’s going to go a long way towards really keeping something that is very important to me alive, which is wrestling on TBS, TNT. When we brought it back, I always said this is an American institution, there should be wrestling on these channels.”
Tony Khan On AEW’s Ratings
During the interview, Tony Khan said that he was “open to these things” when asked about doing three-hour blocks of AEW programming. He also discussed AEW’s viewership numbers. Khan said that they needed to keep doing what they were doing. He stated that they were doing numbers that people in TV would “kill” to have.
“We need to keep doing what we’re doing because the numbers we have are numbers people in TV would kill to have,” Tony Khan said. “And I really need to focus on doing good shows for AEW and not about what the competition is doing, I think in this case our competition going out ahead of us and getting good media rights deals was a positive for us and actually good for us because we have very good historical comps, and these comps are very favorable for us.
“So that’s one thing I’ve done, a ton of market research and retain top analysts and data scientists and looking at this stuff.”
Tony Khan On WBD CEO’s Support
Tony Khan went on to highlight the support of WBD CEO David Zaslav. He stated that WBD could have made a deal with someone else, seemingly referring to WWE, but chose not to.
“That’s a really good thing for the company to have, is the support of the head of the studio, one of the top, most powerful people in Hollywood who loves AEW, loves what we’re doing,” Tony Khan said. “And has gotten a look under the hood of AEW also. Very publicly, it’s not a secret, that they’ve also seen what WWE is doing and analyzed it, done the comps, and I think there’s a very glass-half-full story to that which is they stuck with us and they want to be with us. They had a chance to make a deal with someone else and they didn’t.”
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