Tony Khan Reveals AEW’s Future Strategy and Downplays WWE Rivalry Amid Rating Slump

Amidst endless callouts from online rivals and fans of the sport who continuously criticize Tony Khan on X, the latter is still able to provide good news to the fans who watch AEW on a regular basis. The businessman has been in talks with WBD to extend AEW’s media broadcast contract so that it doesn’t have to move away from TNT and TBS.

As this continued in the background, AEW was dragged for the low viewership and ratings that it got on TV. Additionally, there was also low attendance during various shows. While talking to Dave Meltzer, Khan revealed his thoughts on such callouts.

Tony Khan has a positive outlook on the situation

The AEW show on June 17, 2024, received an all-time low rating since the start of the year. The viewership number has also seen the same slump. Meltzer and Khan were talking about the same on a recent edition of the Wrestling Observer Radio.

While downplaying the ongoing rivalry with WWE, Khan said in the video, “We’ve had historically really strong numbers and maintain really, really strong numbers in TV. And that is the thing we need to do is keep doing what we’re doing because the numbers we have, our numbers, people in TV would kill to have.”

Tony Khan didn’t take a shot at the rivalry for any of the criticisms that he receives from wrestling fans, and neither did he accept that AEW is underperforming in terms of viewership. Instead, the 41-year-old is confident that the numbers that his shows receive on TV are in general good enough. Dave Meltzer had previously also reported how much his company had improved over the course of a few months.

Despite all these reports, Eric Bischoff still thinks that this may not land AEW anywhere.

Tony Khan gets criticized ahead of Forbidden Door PPV

WBD is reportedly going to lose the broadcasting rights to the NBA because of the contract that is coming to an end soon. This caused the speculations going around that maybe the media company wouldn’t want to lose AEW as it could be the primary source for sports coverage and a related-viewer base. Soon after, the entire wrestling world was aware of the fact that AEW was in talks with WBD, negotiating a contract for future broadcasting as Khan himself had revealed.

Now that the lucrative deal will get closed off soon, Eric Bischoff had the opportunity to talk about it. There have already been reports of the offer that WBD provided to the wrestling company. Bischoff, on his podcast, claimed that he knew it would come to this. However, he doesn’t think that it changes anything because, according to him, the money being offered to Tony Khan will not change the fundamentals of AEW and what exactly the promotion is doing wrong. With merely a few hours left before the Forbidden Door PPV, this callout was rough and if the show doesn’t perform well, the veteran may somewhat be proved right in the end.

Do you think AEW’s ratings and viewership are good enough as Tony Khan believes?