Tony Khan Addresses Potential Warner Bros. Discovery Interest In WWE US Media Rights

Warner Bros. Discovery have expanded their partnership with All Elite Wrestling in recent weeks and the promotion will air a new Saturday night show, Collision, on TNT in the United States. Collision is in addition to Dynamite and Rampage which already air on TBS and TNT respectively. 

Collision was added to AEW's weekly schedule at the behest of Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who asked if the promotion could produce a two-hour show for Saturday nights. 

The media conglomerate's commitment to professional wrestling has led to speculation they could be interested in bidding for the US media rights to WWE Raw and Smackdown, with reports this week noting that AEW does not have an exclusivity clause in their deals with WBD. The deals for Raw and SmackDown are set to expire in October 2024. 

Speaking with John Pollock and Brandon Thurston for POST Wrestling, Tony Khan addressed WBD's potential interest in securing WWE programming.

"I don't want to talk too much about the contract we have with Warner Bros. Discovery, but I definitely have some pretty favourable things in there, and given the commitment that Warner Bros. Discovery is making for AEW with Collision and Dynamite, I think it really shows that they're fully committed to AEW. We just had AEW All Access also launch on Max, in addition to being on TBS every Wednesday night and on TNT every Friday and now every Saturday night, starting this week with the launch of Collision," Khan said.

AEW's TV deals with WBD are set to expire later this year if the media company decides not to activate the one-year option they hold. 

H/T to Fightful