I’ve heard this deal might entirely hinge on Max rights to at least the PPV so we have to hold hope they give Tony a good offer or Tony swallows a little bit on this deal in hopes he gets a better next round.

I’ve always defended AEW wanting good money for the PPV since he somehow gets a magical 150K buys in 2024 on PPV, but it would be worth underselling them versus risking losing WBD for your television shows.

Bad News Booty said:

Yeah you gotta go with the long game on this one.

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Exactly. I honestly believe being on tnt and tbs is what propelled AEW so fast and it’s what makes them successful and honestly WBD has always promoted them well. Ads during other programming and print ads and also defending their ratings in press.

That’s what I think is the most important thing to consider and if that 150K translates well to Max subscriptions, Tony should easily be able to negotiate a stronger deal in 3-5 years.

Canadian Dragon said:

With them losing the NBA what else r they gonna spend it on?

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I agree AEW should get the bag, but you can never underestimate a company unwilling to pay what something is worth. I think that’s why we still haven’t heard a deal even though they’ve been trying to get max for like a year now. They don’t seem to be getting in the ballpark Tony is comfortable with and Tony should negotiate while he can, but when it gets the buzzer he should take what WBD offers and hope for a better next round.

Canadian Dragon said:

I personally see no reason to stay on wbd if other networks are interested. Zaslav has been guyting that company so...ya idk if he wants to lowball I'd at least entertain the idea of talking to other places .

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I have to strongly disagree just because WBD has been so supportive of them and they gave them three shows, and even when people are constantly harassing them about the ratings, they constantly defend them. I don’t know if another channel that has the same reach and exposure that would be willing to take three television shows. I also doubt any of those channels would pay them too much more than what WB is offering them. The only real difference would just be that they wouldn’t necessarily want the pay-per-view on a streaming deal depending.

To be fair, I don’t even think WBD is going to lowball them or anything. I think they’re going to get a significant rights increase. My only thing is I don’t think it’ll offset the pay-per-view revenue, but I do think the offer will be fair enough for the actual rights.

But like I said if the max subscription increases the way that I think they will based on what those pay-per-view’s generally see they should be in a great position to negotiate a strong renewal in 3 to 5 years.

Bad News Booty said:

Here’s the thing though you know what you got with them and TNT/TBS
then you fuck around sign somewhere else and you get on a network that ends up not giving you the exposure or the overrun or the time slot you wanted or they do at first but then shit happens and they move it

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Exactly. Think about how many times a company left the channel that was doing well for them and it just absolutely tanked their momentum.

Bad News Booty said:

Getting Papes on Max would be a game changer tbh. I’d be able to watch everyone of them

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Yeah, I certainly wouldn’t complain about not having to shell out an extra $20 a month as I already have Max.

Bad News Booty said:

Didn’t Raw even take a hit when they left USA years back?

TNT def lost momentum and even ECW

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Yep. Imagine that the same channel the fuck the ECW over by never promoting them and digging around their time slot then also gave raw a hard time.

While it wasn’t a bad channel by any stretch of the imagination, it certainly didn’t have the reach of USA either. And wrestling fans were just used to going to that channel. They saw a huge dip in their ratings after the move.