AEW And Turner TV Deal Announcement Coming Next Week?

According to a TV industry report, the announcement for AEW and Turner is coming next Wednesday.

According to a report from The Wrap, Turner and AEW have finalized or are finalizing a deal for All Elite Wrestling to be on TNT. Tony Khan and AEW talent are scheduled to attend the WarnerMedia upfronts on Wednesday at Madison Square Garden in New York, and it’s expected that the deal will be announced an hour before the upfront presentation at 10 AM eastern time.

“The All Elite Wrestling (AEW)-Turner deal is now “virtually done,” a person with knowledge of the plan tells TheWrap exclusively. Current plans call for the partnership to be announced through select press one hour before WarnerMedia’s Wednesday upfront event, the individual said. The arrangement made between the parties called for a small group of reporters to be informed of the agreement on an embargoed basis the evening before.”

The report indicates that no financial terms are known, and points out that we may not know them since AEW isn’t a publicly traded company like WWE.

DeMarco’s Take

Like I’ve been saying, I expect an XFL style deal where AEW isn’t getting money for rights, but is getting the exposure. Regardless, this is big and WWE obviously knows about it already, which is why they are trying everything they can to gain ground (Wild Card Rule) or keep ground (not letting talent leave). While it’s too soon to call it total competition, that sure does seem to be coming.

Does this change the landscape in the fall?