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.
