10 Things AEW MUST Achieve Over The Next Five Years
3. A Better Domestic TV Deal
AEW's deal with TNT is worth $174 million guaranteed by a rights fee paid through 2023.
At the time - January 2020 - this was considered (and remains) a major accomplishment, given how pro wrestling was once viewed by the TV industry and the extent to which WWE had monopolised it. The deal ensured that, barring any drastic financial mismanagement, the promotion would turn a profit well before that was expected. It was the goal: professional wrestling at this level is driven by the TV revenue stream, and AEW's early over-delivery of success was rewarded with medium-term security.
Even before WWE moved NXT to USA as an anti-AEW defence shield, the rights fee for which is shrouded in mystery, the company was set to rake in $435 million from the TV deals struck with USA and FOX effective October 1, 2019 - in 2020 alone.
This was all commensurate with the respective status of each promotion. WWE's popularity is in decline but remains a proven leader on cable, whereas AEW is still an upstart irrespective of how many tests it has passed, the pandemic representing a major one.
But it doesn't feel like that one year later.
AEW has massacred NXT in the so-called Wednesday Night War, and by December 2020 had scored an unprecedented 3-0 18-49 demo victory over the pro wrestling flagship.
Should this trend continue over the next several years - and really, it can't not, since Vince McMahon has proven himself incapable of change to an extent that is almost objective - AEW must leverage its improvement into securing the big, big money. The CM Punk money. The Brock Lesnar money.
The money that will break what remains of the monopoly.