AEW Dynamite To Move Nights Following Turner's NHL TV Deal?

Turner Sports has scored a seven-year deal worth a reported $225 million per season to broadcast NHL coverage.

This is according to Sean Shapiro and Richard Deitsch of The Athletic, who note that Turner scored the contract after NBC pulled out of negotiations, ending a 16-year relationship between the network and hockey league.

AEW Dynamite could be impacted by this. Wednesday is a big night for the NHL and the media rights package NBC had been bidding for involved Wednesday games, leading to reports that this was the reason behind WWE NXT's move to Tuesdays (though WWE's Nick Khan disputed this). This means Turner has an interesting decision on its hands, given it already has Dynamite going out on TNT in that slot.

Turner is paying considerably more for NHL coverage than AEW, which costs the network around $43.75 million a year through the four-year, $175 million deal signed in January 2020. Working in AEW's favour is that Dynamite typically does better P18-49 ratings than NHL games, and Turner places a high value on younger demographics. On the other hand, advertisers tend to view hockey more favourably than wrestling.

AEW Dynamite has benefitted immensely from WWE NXT's move to Tuesdays, posting total viewership of over 1 million for both competition-less weeks.