>AEW would be home free financially and FOX’s bottom line would be far better with even a $125 million deal for the one show, and Rampage and Collision would be effective on FS 1 for additional stronger than usual weekly programming. In addition, Dynamite draws an audience that earns 28 percent more money than the Smackdown audience, which is a huge difference because of Smackdown’s issues with ad rates. But FOX isn’t spending as big on streaming on ESPN and WBD and doesn’t have the in-house PPV component. But would FOX want to go with the No. 2 brand, have the stigma of lower ratings and get back into wrestling right now? I’m guessing no.
>AEW doesn’t really fit on Discovery, and that’s the WBD family. Outside of WBD, ESPN and FOX, the other potential stations like FX, FS 1 or ESPN 2 do roughly one third of what TNT does on average (TNT’s average is boosted by the NBA) and less than half of what TBS does. Besides needing a rights increase or the long-term financial goals for the company wouldn’t be met, a station move would also lower exposure, similar to what happened to TNA when it lost Spike and the ratings on the new station went way down as did company overall popularity. AEW would likely continue, but would have to restructure in some form based on rights fees unless the new station was willing to pay at least 19 to 30 percent more than AEW’s expected 2024 deal with WBD for it to be profitable, and it could be slightly above that if it’s not FOX or ESPN to make up for some likely declines on another station due to lesser exposure.
