Posted on 6/09/125 by Bob Magee
All-Elite Wrestling’s television and streaming deals are
likely to be unaffected by the upcoming split of Warner
Bros. Discovery and its streaming and television properties,
sources told SEScoops.com on Monday.
Variety and several other publications reported WBD would be
splitting its HBO MAX streaming from its television
properties by mid-2026. WBD Streaming and Studios would be
headed by current WBD CEO David Zaslav. A second company,
comprising of WBD’s television properties, would be re-named
WBD Global Networks and led by WBD CFO Gunnar Widenfels.
AEW signed a three-year deal with WBD for its programming on
TNT, TBS and the HBO MAX streaming network last fall. The
deal, which was reported first by SEScoops, is for around
$175 million to $200 million per year. WBD had an option to
extend the contract to a fourth year.
AEW Dynamite and Collision were added to the HBO MAX
streaming in January, where Dynamite over the first several
months of the year was averaging around 500,000 viewers in
the Live + 1 metric with a deviation of positive/negative
10-20 percent per week. We first reported the streaming
numbers in an exclusive report earlier this year.
A source familiar with the AEW and WBD contracts said the
wrestling company would likely be unaffected by the split.
WBD was shopping the venerable news network CNN for sale
earlier this year. Potential buyers included several local
TV broadcast companies. A split of WBD’s streaming and cable
assets was expected to take place later. The current split
keeps CNN aligned with the current WBD cable properties such
as TNT, TBS, TruTV and Discovery.
According to Variety, most of WBD’s $37 billion in debt
would live with WBD Global Properties when the split occurs.