Tony Khan Comments On Relationship With Warner Bros Discovery

AEW has integrated Warner Bros. Discovery IP into its programming in recent months in promoting Shark Week and House of the Dragon. 

When Warner Bros. merged with Discovery in April, many fans were unsure how the merger would affect AEW. With AEW’s TV deal coming up at the end of 2023, Khan has enjoyed working with the new executives at Warner Bros. Discovery and the trust they have shown AEW. 

“This is my third TV deal (coming up). I’m on my second TV deal. Live events is a huge revenue driver, merchandising is a huge revenue driver. We have big sponsorships now, DraftKings has come in and been an amazing sponsor for AEW this year. Also, what we have, media rights is a big part of it. Pay-per-view is a big part of it. We’ve been selling pay-per-views, working with Bleacher Report, InDemand providers, internationally, FiteTV streaming. Our TV deals are our biggest individual revenue driver. For us, we have this great partnership with Warner Brothers Discovery and have the rest of this year and next year. They have been so good to us. Not only was the original leadership so great to take a chance on an unknown company, but post-merger, the Discovery leadership that has come in has been so supportive and we’re getting opportunities now with the new management even bigger than we’ve ever gotten before,” Khan said when speaking to Sporticast.

Khan elaborated on working with Warner Bros. Discovery by saying, “New faces, new people, and they’re great people. We’ve had different management teams over the last few years and this is a new group. Obviously, they have different experiences and different insights and a different portfolio of IP coming in, but also new IP being created by the new property and existing IP we’ve never really been associated with before. Just in the few months we’ve been working together, it’s been great getting to know them and working with them. They’ve given us opportunities for integrations and I hope we’ve done a good job. The fact that we’re getting more of them and they’ve been so positive about the job we’ve done, it went really well.”

Khan noted that Warner Bros. Discovery quickly turned around and asked AEW to incorporate House of the Dargon after the success of the Shark Week integration. 

Khan also touted the ratings success of Dynamite as the show has consistently been in the top two on cable for Wednesday nights. Will Washington had an update on the AEW-WBD relationship, which you can read by clicking here.

If you missed anything from Wednesday’s AEW Dynamite, check out Fightful’s report on the show by clicking here. 

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