Tony Khan tells the origin story of AEW, and drops a little information about Turner bidding.
All Elite Wrestling was officially announced at the start of 2019 with a reveal on Being The Elite. The company held its first event, AEW Double or Nothing, in May 2019 and premiered AEW Dynamite on TNT in October 2019.
Speaking on Locked on NFL, AEW President Tony Khan was asked when he had the idea to bring AEW to life.
"It's something I started working on in 2018. The idea to launch AEW, a lot of things came together, and I believed there were enough great wrestlers that would be available in the beginning of 2019 to launch a wrestling league. In April 2018, I started working on this. I was at a party in Beverly Hills on a Friday night. I saw my friend, who at the time was the President of TBS and TNT [Kevin Reilly]. I walked up to him, I was visiting with him a little bit, and I said, 'Kevin, are you looking at bidding on wrestling TV rights?' He was, and he was looking to bid on SmackDown. He told me what he was willing to pay, he said, $150 to $175 million a year. I follow the industry closely, so I knew that it was going to go over $200 million, and it did. I pointed out, 'I don't know if that's going to get it done. For a lot less than that, we could launch a new wrestling league on TNT and eventually TBS, too.' That's what happened," said Khan.
WWE SmackDown ended up going to FOX on a five-year deal worth $205 million per year. SmackDown on FOX premiered two days after AEW Dynamite.
AEW has only added to its programming on TBS/TNT with AEW Rampage and AEW Collision airing on TNT while AEW Dynamite moved to TBS.
If you use any of the quotes above, please credit and link to the original source with a h/t and link back to Fightful for the transcription.
