Wrestlenomics Radio: Notes from Thurston's comments on AEW and WWE rights fees in the next round.
Source: https://wrestlenomics.com/podcast/
On yesterday's Wrestlenomics Radio, Brandon Thurston spent about 90 minutes exploring the TV Rights landscape for WWE and AEW in the wake of the Warner/Discovery merger. Here are some of the notable points he makes:
- Thurston states that he actually doesn't think AEW got ANY extra money for moving to TBS. He thinks that the Battle of the Belts special was the only thing that Warner gave them for the move
- Thurston thinks that Warnermedia actually has a minority ownership stake in AEW and doubts they'll go elsewhere.
- Brandon commented on Dave's pessimism towards AEW's future in their ability to get a big rights increase, and doubled-down and stated once again that he thinks AEW getting a 3x rights increase is a realistic outcome. In fact, he actually made an argument that they probably deserve a 5x rights increase.
- He firmly believes that WWE will get around a 1.5x rights increase. He explained his reasoning in detail and stated that Morgan Stanley made a similar projection.
- He stated that it appears that WWE likely has higher ad rates because even though AEW and WWE have similar ads, WWE notably has car commercials, while AEW does not at this time.
- Thurston also ran down every major media company and the likelihood of them making a play for WWE or AEW content. In terms of potential alternatives for AEW, basically all of them would be a "downgrade in reach and viewership", but there are definitely media players (both TV and streaming) that could certainly make a play for AEW and offer a money deal in the next round since they've established a short track record.
meltzer should leave the speculation of tv deals to the experts, ill just say that
here comes the money for aew it seems (and wwe ofc!)
