All Elite Wrestling’s elusive U.S. television deal is expected to be announced next Wednesday ahead of WarnerMedia’s upfront presentation in New York City.
Tony Maglio of The Wrap reports that the deal is expected to be announced one hour before the upfront presentation on Wednesday morning with AEW slated for a spot on the TNT lineup this fall.
The news of the announcement at the upfront presentation was first reported by Brian McMahon, who is better known as “Front Row Brian” when he posted this news on April 10th.
Maglio’s report adds that financial terms of the deal are not expected to be announced publicly and will be a key part of the story and whether AEW is able to secure a rights fee for the programming. The report also notes that Tony Khan and several AEW performers are expected on hand at the upfront presentation at Madison Square Garden.
The deal would see the return of professional wrestling to TNT, which was the home of WCW’s Monday Nitro from September 1995 until the promotion’s demise in March 2001.
Again, I refuse to believe that any Network / Cable outlet is going to include a show in their upfront presentations, that is paying to be a part the outlet.
While I am not saying they have a rights fee being paid - if they are featuring it, they are invested in it. So whether that means covering costs of the programming (see XFL’s deal), or something else - it’s definitely not a “buying airtime” scenario.
Also, I fully expect the premiere of the new show to be at MSG, in October.
Flashback to my Cafe Call in where this is what I predicted for timing: upfronts, in May, Turner, lead up to Double or Nothing.
Not looking for credit or boasting but the reality is this was very easily figured out months ago and everyone who doubted this would come to fruition probably didn’t study media and TV trends or a student of Public Relations and publicity.
Isn’t that the truth. It always seems that people who ONLY like WWE either don’t know other promotions exist or they don’t want anything else to succeed and be considered better than what they like. They’re sensitive. Meanwhile, you could ask everyone outside the WWE bubble and I’m sure 60% would admit they wish WWE was better…it’s just not and most likely won’t be for a long time.
I think a lot of the hate wanting AEW to fail is based on a few things:
Loyalty to WWE and Vince always telling people that you are WWE fans and putting down competition
Wanting AEW guys in WWE - I think a lot of fans don’t want to see Omega fight the Young Bucks and Cody and Jericho again. They want to see him fight AJ and Bryan and Brock and Seth etc. So I think they want AEW to fail to get these stars into WWE
Wrestling saturation - I think with WWE and NJPW it’s hard enough to follow everything. Add in all the minor leagues like NXT, ROH etc and now another major league and I think saturation may be hitting and fans don’t really want another thriving wrestling league to follow
I really don’t see how AEW’s success could be / would be anything negative for fans. It really boggles my mind why people have taken a negative stance on it.
Success is a plus for fans, workers, and the business as a whole. There is literally no downside for anybody if it succeeds.
It is less a saturation then we had years ago. It just seems like more do to access through the internet. If you wanted to see what was happening in a different region you had to find someone to trade with. Not to mention digital copies of everything take up way less space then VHS tapes.
No reason anyone should feel overwhelmed. Just pick and choose what you want to see and ignore the rest.
Happy to see more wrestling that I can DVR and not have to make an additional financial investment to get into. It at least gives me a shot at becoming an AEW fan.