Major change could have "significant effect" on AEW, according to Dave Meltzer

Dave Meltzer recently commented on AEW's media rights renegotiation deal with Warner Bros Discovery.

Warner Bros Discovery and Tony Khan are set to have a media rights renegotiation deal soon. Currently the multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate is in the middle of a negotiation deal with the NBA.

Recent reports reveal that NBC is planning to outbid and therefore WBD could lose their NBA media rights deal.

While speaking on the latest edition of Wrestling News Observer, Dave Meltzer stated that the WBD and NBA deal will have a major effect on the deal that AEW is to have with the New York-based company soon.

He said, "It’s a really hard one to answer. On one hand , you would make the argument that if WBD loses the NBA that it would need AEW more, because they don’t have the NBA and they need programming which draws ratings. On the other hand, their carriage fees for TNT would probably go way, way down so their revenue would go way, way down."

Meltzer added that if WBD loses NBA then the media production company will have less money to spend on the Jacksonville-based company.

"You could make the argument that they would have far less money to spend and that’s not good for AEW. At the same time when you say that they’d have far less money to spend, the reality is if you take the NBA rights that they’re already paying away - even though they’d have less money gross coming in - they would probably have way more money to spend." [H/T WrestleTalk]

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WBD media rights deal is going to be tough on AEW

Speaking on the same episode, Dave Meltzer pointed out that irrespective of what the outcome of the WBD-NBA deal will be, Tony Khan's promotion will experience some sort of loss from it.

"As a station, it would greatly downgrade TNT losing the NBA, their overall standing would go way, way down. However this NBA thing turns out, and it’s not looking good at this moment for TNT retaining the NBA, it does have a pretty significant effect on the negotiations with AEW in multiple ways."

The Warner Bros. deal is going to be a significant one for the wrestling promotion. The company has already lost a multiyear contract with TelevisaUnivision which was supposed to air their weekly shows on the ViX platform.