The looming breakup of struggling TV player Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) won’t bodyslam All Elite Wrestling’s (AEW) business, says CEO Tony Khan.
“We have great relationships with everybody at the top, both on global networks and streaming and studios,” Khan told Yahoo Finance at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity on Tuesday (watch above). “Mr. Zaslav [CEO David Zaslav] himself put our deal together. Gunnar [CFO Gunnar Wiedenfels], who will be running global networks, also was very involved in our deal.”
Warner Bros. Discovery said this month it will split up amid the shift to streaming that’s financially hammering its legacy TV assets. The company joins rival Comcast (CMCSA) in separating TV operations from streaming assets.
Last October, AEW and Warner Bros. Discovery signed a multiyear media rights deal for a reported $185 million annually. The wrestling league’s two weekly shows, “Dynamite” and “Collision,” air on Warner Bros. Discovery’s TBS and TNT networks. As part of the new deal, AEW’s programming began streaming on Max for US subscribers in January.
AEW was launched in 2019 by Tony Khan, a longtime wrestling fan, and his father, Shad Khan. The promotion represented the first credible rival to the WWE since WCW folded in 2001.
Shad and Tony Khan are co-owners of the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars and Premier League soccer team Fulham FC.
AEW debuted with an impressive roster of talent, led at the time by former WWE star Cody Rhodes. While Rhodes has since returned to the WWE, the league has maintained a roster of top talent, including former WWE stars Jon Moxley and Bryan Danielson.
Besides the big media breakups, the operating landscape for AEW is ever-shifting.
In September 2023, Endeavor completed a $21 billion merger between WWE and UFC, forming TKO Group (TKO). Netflix (NFLX) began exclusively streaming WWE’s flagship Raw show in January as part of a $5 billion, 10-year rights deal.
Speculation has since surfaced that TKO Group may look to unload WWE.
Meanwhile, the competition for eyeballs has never been fiercer as Gen Z spends outsized time on platforms such as YouTube and Spotify.
“I think they [linear TV networks] still have a strong life. I just don’t know how long it is,” former BET CEO Debra Lee told Yahoo Finance at Cannes Lions about legacy media.
Lee is currently a board member at Warner Bros. Discovery.
“The viewing audience is still there,” Lee added. “You know, you look at channels like BET or TNT or Discovery, so the audiences are still there. Not everybody wants to be on streaming.”
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