During a media scrum with Tony Khan to promote AEW All Out, Khan was asked about his stance on allowing wrestlers to monetize things through third party platforms. Khan stated that they have no plans to prevent anyone from making money through this means, but does add that there are “gray areas.” Tony says, hypothetically, “If one of your big star wrestlers tries to get a Pepsi sponsorship under their twitch [identity] and not as a wrestler, you’d [think] ‘well it seems like you’re trying to circumvent the company, maybe.’ But for the most part, I support people going onto Twitch and monetizing that platform.”
As an example, Khan brings up Being The Elite. That is a YouTube show that involves AEW wrestlers using their AEW names, but it is not an AEW show. To end his answer, Khan says, “I definitely think I wouldn’t tell people they can’t do anything outside of the company, though. That seems too unfair and a pretty strong policy. I’m not saying anyone else has that policy, but as far as saying you can’t do anything outside of what we’re doing, I wouldn’t do that.”
The question is in relation to WWE’s latest policy that tells wrestlers they can’t use their WWE owned names or likeness on a third party platform like Twitch or YouTube. During All Out, AEW ran a skit that had Kip Sabian plug his Twitch account with a disclaimer at the bottom of the screen stating that AEW approves of this message. As far as approving the segment, Khan said, “Kip wanted to have some fun and I thought it was fun.”
ALL OUT EXCLUSIVE@TheKipSabian & @ThePenelopeFord have a special announcement this Wednesday on #AEWDynamite!#AEWAllOut pic.twitter.com/h36yvHPLEx
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEWrestling) September 6, 2020
