Posted on 5/15/123 by Colin Vassallo
Wade Keller of the Pro Wrestling Torch is reporting that the
new AEW television deal with Warner Bros. Discovery which
will be announced on Wednesday is worth around $240 million
per year on a five year deal, giving AEW around $1.2 billion
over the course of the deal.
That figure per year will include all of AEW programming,
Dynamite, Rampage, and a new Saturday night show titled
Collision. The deal will also include all the AEW library to
be part of Max, formerly known as HBO Max, when the service
launches this month. It’s unknown if AEW pay-per-views will
be on Bleacher Report only moving forward at this point or
streaming on Max.
If the $240 million figure is indeed correct, that would
result in a massive, massive increase over the current TV
rights and will allow AEW to be more competitive when it
comes to securing talent in the future. Just for comparison
reasons, WWE got just over $200 million for the WWE Network
on Peacock, around $250 million for Raw from NBCUniversal,
and $205 million from FOX for Smackdown per year.
The creation of the Saturday night show will also require
AEW to go on the road twice – on Wednesday and Saturday. The
plan is for Dynamite and Rampage to tape together and
Collision and ROH to tape together. ROH is not part of any
of the new television deal and will remain airing on ROH’s
HonorClub streaming service.