Warner-Discovery Merger Could Affect AEW’s Television Deal

There has been a lot of chatter about how the recent Warner-Discovery merger could affect All Elite Wrestling. Long-time fans immediately became nervous at the thought of a corporate merger affecting their favorite wrestling shows. WCW was effectively killed when the AOL-Time Warner pairing decided they no longer wanted wrestling on the Turner networks. Many have the sinking feeling that history could repeat itself.

Thus far, there is no indication that the company intends to drop AEW from its lineup. The show has drawn strong ratings in its timeslots and, under the current rights deal, is bargain. The media landscape is changing quickly, though. Major cuts have been announced for scripted programming within the newly-merged conglomerate.

If things go wrong and the new management decides they are no longer interested in wrestling or that the results aren’t worth the investment, Tony Khan has plenty of options. Dave Meltzer talked about those options on the latest Wrestling Observer Radio. Even without Warner-Discovery in the picture, AEW would be likely to live on.

“You know, it’s a whole changing world. The fact that the ratings are very good puts them in a pretty good position. I think that they would be able to get something somewhere. I don’t see AEW not being around, you know. I think it’s here for a long time. The thing that would kill it, the #1 thing that would kill it would be Tony Khan just wanting to move on in life and be mad at wrestling and not wanting to do wrestling anymore because he doesn’t need to do it. It’s not like his major livelihood or anything like that. It’s very different from promoters of the past who used it as their main livelihood.

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I don’t expect that to happen, but it is something that you have to consider. He probably could sell it and somebody else could… He definitely could sell it right now. Somebody else or whoever would buy it or probably keep it alive if he wants to sell it. He could try to go public with it if he wants to. There’s a million different things that can happen in the future and everything like that. The value of the company, I’ve heard, economic people, a year ago, give me a number that the company’s worth $400 million and it’d be way up from that now because it’s a lot more popular now.”

AEW is a very valuable property for broadcasters who are interested in live programming. It may be that company’s current partners are just happy with the product. If not, there are plenty of options for Tony Khan to move the company into the future.