October 2, 2024 is an important date in All Elite Wrestling history.
In fact, if you ask the most important figure in the company, he will tell you that it is the most-important date in AEW history.
Shortly after AEW and Warner Bros. Discovery announced a multi-year, multi-platform media rights renewal that Variety is reporting has a value of upwards of $150 million per year, Tony Khan spoke with The Hollywood Reporter for an interview.
During the discussion, Khan spoke about today being the “biggest day in AEW’s history” while addressing the new AEW and WBD deal, which as noted, includes AEW Dynamite and AEW Collision being simulcast each week on MAX, in addition to changes such as AEW pay-per-views being offered at a discount on MAX.
“What a perfect time to make this announcement about our future,” Khan said of today’s groundbreaking AEW and WBD announcement.
Also commenting in the The Hollywood Reporter piece was Warner Bros. Discovery CEO of U.S. Networks Kathleen Finch, who stated “nobody can deliver an audience the way AEW can.”
“The benefit now to WBD is to introduce this terrific event to a streaming audience, the MAX audience, which may not have been exposed to AEW in any great way until now, starting in January, is going to have it every Wednesday and Saturday nights, as well as the library available to stream,” Finch stated. “So we are really excited about the growth opportunity and the excitement opportunity that the fandom can bring once we’ve got a new platform to expose AEW to.”
Finch also spoke highly of Khan.
“What he has done in five years is so miraculous that I think we sometimes lose sight of that,” Finch said of the AEW President. “It’s the five-year anniversary tonight of something that should actually be 10 or 15 years old given all the growth that it’s had.”
Likewise, the boss-man of All Elite Wrestling thinks just as highly about the higher-ups at Warner Bros. Discovery.
“I could not ask for better bosses than Kathleen and [WBD CEO] David Zaslav,” Khan said. “They’ve been so supportive of AEW from the time that Discovery and Warner Brothers came together to form Warner Bros. Discovery, I’ve gotten so much love and support from this team.”
