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Report: Tony Khan disappointed with current WBD offer for AEW TV rights renewal (www.f4wonline.com)

submitted 1 year ago by GeekFTW@lemmy.zip to c/squaredcircle@lemmy.zip

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After months of speculation, there is some new insight into the current AEW/Warner Bros. Discovery TV rights renewal talks: some of which that has AEW head Tony Khan reportedly not thrilled with the current offer.

As part of his weekly subscriber newsletter, Puck’s Matt Belloni (former of The Hollywood Reporter) reported that WBD head David Zaslav and TNT Sports head Luis Silberwasser want to retain AEW Dynamite, Collision and Rampage.

However, Belloni writes, “…the clock is ticking. I’m told the exclusive window closes in July, and AEW leader Tony Khan is said to be disappointed with the offer currently on the table. Khan also surely knows that Zaz losing the NBA would give AEW more leverage, even though the money to re-up AEW is a mere drop in the NBA bucket. If the window closes without a deal, others could swoop in for those rights, as Comcast has done with the NBA. (Extra awkward because WBD is said to own a stake in the league.)”

He went on to speculate that he’s unsure of how attractive AEW is to other platforms, given only non-WWE partners can be in on potential bidding. He also said AEW provides “reliable programming” and that if Zaslav loses both NBA and AEW TV rights, that could cause more damage in WBD’s deals with cable providers.

Khan has been quiet about anything to do with the rights renewal talks, only to say that the negotiating window is up soon while continuing to speak positively about both WBD and Zaslav in addition to the marketplace for AEW rights if it gets there.

The deal between AEW and WBD is believed to be up at the end of this year.

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[–] Brain@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 year ago

I'm guessing WBD won't give him the offer he wants, their debt load is insane and they don't want to come out and say it. Last I read they were over $40 Billion in debt, Zazlov is getting paid no matter what happens and has no incentive to play ball with Sports Leagues or AEW that might increase that debt load.

Part of paying that down, tax breaks, and firing people aside, is loading the advertising up, for that you need ratings, even in the era where "nobody watches cable" the network needs ratings to keep advertisers paying. Unfortunately, AEW's slipped in the negotiating year.

I imagine they will meet somewhere in the middle before the deadline comes, they pretty much need each other unless the rumor FX might be interested in AEW after they lost out on the WWE is true. FX is a Disney network so, in theory, they could wind up on Hulu or D+, I'd like that.

Now for my wild request in the new contract assuming they sign with WBD, which I think is likely. I'd like for WBD to no longer preempt them or not air them some weeks during other live sporting events, instead, they should have wrestlers appear on other WBD properties... make the House of Black redecorate houses on HGTV, have BCC appear on Chopped, do some cross-promoting with them, maybe have Darby do Shark Week from inside the shark cage... toss some of them on Naked & Afraid and see what happens. WBD has so many properties and shows that are "reality" TV, use them to try and grow the products.