Tony Khan looks ahead to AEW's media rights negotiations and comments on a potential streaming deal.
AEW launched in 2019 and quickly landed a TV deal with WarnerMedia. AEW Dynamite proved to be a success, and the two sides expanded their relationship with the addition of AEW Rampage in 2021. AEW Dynamite moved to TBS in 2022, and Khan has repeatedly made it clear that ehe has enjoyed working with the company's media partner, both before and after the Warner Brothers Discovery Merger. Khan previously stated that Warner Brothers Discovery sees how important it is for fans to have wrestling on TBS and TNT. AEW and WarnerMedia reportedly reached an extension, and the deal is still set to expire in 2023.
Speaking with Uproxx Sports, Khan commented on the upcoming media rights negotiations and made it clear that he expects to see big increases for AEW's product. He stated that he believes the company is on a good pace to land a lucrative deal.
“I expect big increases in the rights for the AEW programs and we’re on a good pace to make a very lucrative deal for the AEW media rights going forward,” Khan said.
Khan previously discussed a potential streaming deal for AEW and noted that he thought there could be some great opportunities in that regard. Bloomberg recently reported that AEW is considering the possibility, potentially with the help of Warner Brothers Discovery, Khan highlighted the amount of content that AEW has already produced. He also noted that he owns the Ring of Honor library, which includes countless classic matches. Khan stated that there's plenty of interest in the product, including the weekly content AEW produces every week, and it would make sense for the company to try to make it available for fans around the world.
“We’ve done 174 episodes of Dynamite, 80 episodes of AEW Rampage, our 17th pay-per-view event will be March 5 in Revolution, so we’ve done hundreds and hundreds of hours of AEW content in our library. I also purchased Ring of Honor last year, which is a great promotion with over 20 years of history, thousands of hours of video in their library. So overall, AEW has access to so many great wrestling events, including some events that are widely considered to be some of the best wrestling events of all time. There’s a lot of interest in this library as well as the new weekly content we continue to produce each week, and I do think there’s a lot of demand for the library and it makes a lot of sense for us to try to make that AEW library available to fans all over the world on demand," Khan said.
Though he mentioned both AEW and ROH in his comments about the media library, Khan made it clear that he wants to run them as separate promotions that "exist in the same metaverse" of wrestling.
Khan recently commented on paying tribute to Jay Briscoe on AEW Dynamite. Check out his comments here.
In a recent interview, Khan expressed his interest in the WWE sale process. Click here to see what he had to say.
Khan offered an update about the location of AEW Double or Nothing 2023. More information is available here.
Check out the card for this week's episode of AEW Dynamite here.
