AEW’s media rights deals are coming up soon.
And if you ask Tony Khan, they’re going to be great deals for the promotion.
During a recent interview with Dave Meltzer and Bryan Alvarez on Wrestling Observer Radio at F4WOnline.com, the AEW President shed some light into the subject.
“It’s a very complex conversation. There’s a lot of things to be talked about,” Khan said.
Khan addressed concerns for AEW’s pay-per-view model and the potential for the company’s big events to be featured on WBD’s streaming service, MAX, or the new proposed sports streaming platform, Venu Sports.
“In addition to MAX, obviously, a lot of people are talking about Venu Sports. That’s a really unique opportunity,” Khan said of the proposed joint streaming service that would be owned by Disney, Fox, and WBD.
“I think (Venu Sports) could be something we could be part of and it’s a really interesting conversation,” he said. “That’s a whole new conversation and that’s a new world. There’s a lot of really interesting and exciting things but what’s really cool is I don’t think that Warner Bros has had such a hands-on boss who has overseen a studio like this since Ted Turner was here at TNT and TBS like we have with David (Zaslav).”
He continued, “There is a supreme commander at the top of Warner Bros Discovery and he loves AEW and I have a great relationship with him and I think it’s going to go a long way towards really keeping something that is very important to me alive, which is wrestling on TBS, TNT. When we brought it back, I always said this is an American institution, there should be wrestling on these channels.”
As far as the U.K. scene goes, Khan also spoke about having recent discussions with ITV in England.
“I also had the same great conversations in England with the amazing people at ITV,” he said. “I really feel that way also about England, there should be wrestling on ITV.”
Khan would go on to discuss the significance of having the WBD CEO supporting AEW.
“That’s a really good thing for the company to have, is the support of the head of the studio, one of the top, most powerful people in Hollywood who loves AEW, loves what we’re doing,” he said. “And has gotten a look under the hood of AEW also.”
He added, “Very publicly, it’s not a secret, that they’ve also seen what WWE is doing and analyzed it, done the comps, and I think there’s a very glass-half-full story to that which is they stuck with us and they want to be with us. They had a chance to make a deal with someone else and they didn’t.”
Check out the complete interview by subscribing at F4WOnline.com.
AEW & NJPW: Forbidden Door 2024 goes down tonight, Sunday, June 30, from the UBS Arena in Elmont, New York.
