Tony Khan says it's all been building to this.
AEW's media rights deal is coming up, and the company has been negotiating with Warner Brothers Discovery. Khan has often discussed the negotiations and AEW's relationship with WBD throughout this process.
Speaking with Case the Producer from Q101’s Brian & Kenzie Morning Show, Tony Khan was asked about AEW's growth, and he brought up how the company has went from having a two-hour show to having three weekly programs. He commented on the negotiations for AEW's media rights and spoke highly of their experience with Warner Brothers Discovery.
“Right now is the most important time ever in AEW. We’re on the verge of the most important deal we’ll ever make, this upcoming media rights, and it’s been great working with Warner Brothers Discovery on the future. For all these years, we’ve had so much great experience with Warner Brothers Discovery, and now, under the leadership of David Zaslav, the company, for us, the connection, the things we’ve been able to do, I think it’s getting stronger and stronger," Khan said.
Khan went on to highlight AEW's success and noted that he believed the company would be profitable and successful. He pointed to AEW's pay-per-view numbers and stated that 2024 has been a great year in that regard.
“I think now, over five years, it’s really been building to this point where AEW’s going to jump into the media rights and be a very profitable, successful company that has lived up to every expectation we ever could have had because we’ve done so many amazing things in this years. We’ve had all these amazing pay-per-view records. We’ve really come in and we’ve done pay-per-view numbers, whether adjusted or straight-up, head-to-head, very strong compared to the last few years of WCW, and I think that’s really a success story. I think pay-per-views are really fun, but it’s a really interesting business point that our business on pay-per-view has continued to get stronger. This year’s been great for us, we’ve had some huge events, including Revolution, which was one of our biggest pay-per-views ever," Khan said.
Khan recently said that the future was bright for AEW. Check out his comments here.
Fightful Select has reported more information about AEW's talks with WBD.
Fightful will have coverage of AEW Dynamite as it airs on August 7th, as well as a post-show podcast on our YouTube channel.
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