>>14454837Thanks to SRS, Zarian and Meltzer, AEW fan has convinced xirself that whether the talent budget is $30M/year or $130M/year - whether AEW gets 7,600 fans or 2,600 fans per show - AEW will *no matter what* become profitable after their next TV rights deal. They never even for 5 seconds considered that Tony might torpedo his profitability by overspending on Copeland, Okada, White, Mercedes, Ospreay and all the rest
It's one thing to take the $100M/year TV deal when your talent budget is only $70M/year; but now it's ballooned way past $100M and Tony is demanding $125M or more, as if it's WBD's job to reimburse him for impulse purchases that have paradoxically made the ratings go DOWN, not UP.
AEW has no leverage at this point, and that's a problem. Worse, WBD has massive debts so they have a built in out to explain to stakeholders why "#1-5 on Cable Non-Sports Wednesday Original Programming In the 18-54 Demo" AEW wasn't renewed.
