The upstart wrestling promotion, All-Elite Wrestling, has found a television home with Time Warner. The announcement was made official when AEW appeared at the Turner upfronts on Wednesday.
AEW signed a deal with WarnerMedia that will give the promotion which has its first show Memorial Day weekend, a weekly television show on TNT primetime beginning later this year. It will be the first time that professional wrestling has aired on TNT since the days of WCW in 2001.
In addition to TNT, AEW will stream on the B/R Live app. The media rights deal was negotiated by AEW president and CEO Tony Khan and Bernie Cahill, co-founder of Activist Artists Management, LLC.
The television deal is an enormous benchmark for the nascent promotion which has gained momentum since its independent show, All-In, revealed an independent wrestling base willing to support non-WWE wrestling.
Payout Perspective:
Maybe not the redux of the Monday Night Wars which was the heyday of pro wrestling on cable networks. With WWE now a publicly traded company and a central part of Fox’s network plans this fall, AEW’s television deal seems to be an homage to independent wrestling. With a lot of expectations from the fans that have followed the Young Bucks, Kenny Omega and Cody, it will be interesting to see how the company seeks to differentiate itself from the WWE, and how it will draw sponsors and build an audience. Also, interesting, what will the WWE do to retain talent from jumping to AEW and how it will produce its shows based on its new competition.
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