AEW Unlikely To Move PPVs To Flat Price Streaming Model

Tony Khan announced that he has purchased Ring of Honor on last night’s episode of AEW Dynamite. The deal comes with over two decades worth of some of the finest professional wrestling and biggest stars in the history of the sport. ROH also has something that Tony has been searching for for a while: A streaming service.

A report came out yesterday that Tony Khan and AEW had likely signed a streaming deal with HBO Max. Khan did not mention that or give any details during his ROH announcement. If the deal fell through or was just a red herring, AEW did pick up a streaming service of its own with a built-in subscriber base.

Ring of Honor has offered fans their Honor Club streaming service. While the library is not complete, fans can check out live events and even house shows from the vast ROH library. If AEW needs a streaming service and things don’t work out with HBO, they have one ready-made. Dave Meltzer pointed out on the latest Wrestling Observer Radio that it is unlikely any such service from AEW would offer live pay-per-views at a flat monthly rate.

“So, actually, they got a streaming service. Tony bought a streaming service. Honor Club. So, he does have that. He could revamp that, he could rename that, and he’s already got it, and he’s even got some subscribers to start with if you want to build from that. That actually makes sense, too. You might as well do something with it, until you make that sale. And if you don’t make the sale, that’s fine.

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I don’t see them making the move of putting their pay-per-views on the streaming service. They may, but they’re making a lot of money on pay-per-views right now. So, to give that up and put it for like a $9.99 price or something like that, I don’t see them doing that.”

AEW is doing very well financially using a hybrid of the traditional pay-per-view model and streaming through Bleacher Report and Fite internationally. They would be foolish to give up that kind of money. Tony Khan will have to analyze what’s best for business when it comes to how to handle AEW’s streaming ambitions.

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Transcription by Ringside News