AEW President & CEO Tony Khan appeared on the latest episode of the “AEW Unrestricted” podcast, which you can find at this link. Below are some highlights from the interview:
* Khan said his favorite empty arena Dynamite episodes from the coronavirus pandemic have been the first one on March 18 and last week’s episode on April 29
* He revealed how AEW got the idea to use wrestlers as the limited crowd several weeks back. A friend of his is a writer for The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, and he saw how they incorporated the writing staff & crew to serve as audience members to react to Fallon, and utilized that for the AEW shows that had wrestlers in the crowd, compared to other pro wrestling TV shows that are “cold”
* AEW had just over 1/4 of the roster available to tape ahead at the recent Norcross, GA tapings, and wanted to tape ahead to be safe. For the Georgia tapings, the only agents they had were involved in their own matches, so they were limited in the aspect of match layouts. Many more talents are being brought in for this week’s tapings and they will have double the roster available for tonight
* Khan hyped up the new AEW TNT Title as being on par with the AEW World Title and said it was an idea that he had. He has worked with Cody Rhodes for a while on the idea of a second title
* Aubrey Edwards was the referee for 20 matches within a period of 24 hours, and she spent 19 days in Jacksonville and Georgia at a hotel
* There were no injuries during the recent sets of tapings, besides Britt Baker’s busted nose
* AEW will be keeping people isolated and will practice social distancing for the tapings that begin tonight. They are also doing the testing that we posted on earlier at this link
* Khan estimated they would drop 10% in viewership for the empty arena shows. He said he did not want to rely on airing past pay-per-view events on TNT
* Khan stated that AEW has not let anyone go during this period of uncertainty brought on by COVID-19, and said it’s “not the right time for re-organizing or re-structuring” for AEW. He said a time will come when they do have to cut people “but now is now the time.” He also said in the big picture AEW is in good shape. He characterized the company as the second healthiest company in the industry
* AEW’s revenue stream right now is TV. They had sold 120,000 tickets for the Dynamite episode that was scheduled for the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ this past March. He said they have lost “millions and millions of dollars in live events” since the pandemic hit
“We’ve talked a lot about what it took to put the show on, but let’s be honest. Why we’re doing it. For AEW, our partnership with TNT, putting on great shows, is our revenue stream right now cause we’re not doing the big events,” Khan additionally stated, before saying AEW led the world in per show attendance last year. (H/T to Pro Wrestling Sheet) “This was going to be the best run of business we’ve ever had. And we’ve lost millions and millions and millions of dollars in live events and I don’t take it lightly, but I can’t take it out on the people that work here cause it’s not their fault. We’ve really never let anybody go here as a company. I’m gonna be honest, there’s gonna be a day when someday we’re going to have to, but now is not the time.”
(H/T to POST Wrestling for the highlights)
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