Tony Khan Comments On Forbes Evaluation Of AEW, Talks CM Punk, Dynasty, Media Rights and More On Today’s Media Call

AEW President Tony Khan appeared on a media call today to promote this Sunday’s Dynasty pay-per-view. Here are the highlights from the call.

-Earlier in the day Forbes ranked WWE, UFC, and AEW as the top three combat sports organizations, with AEW coming in third at a $2 billion dollar evaluation. When asked about it Khan said that AEW is the most valuable sports startup since the AFL, which eventually merged with the NFL. He once again reiterated that the upcoming media rights deal with Warner Bros. Discovery is the most important thing for the company aside from pay-per-view growth.

-Regarding the decision to air the CM Punk All In footage on Dynamite Khan had this to say:

After the ratings came in, it felt like, when TBS called me and told me ‘good job.’ You have to remember, I’m responsible for everybody’s job in the company. It is really important for us to please the network and TBS was really happy with that show and that performance. That is the most important. Our fan feedback on the show, the rating is the number source of fan feedback in the end, the network, and they were incredibly pleased. It was 400,000 viewers in the 18 to 49 demographic, and that was a strong performance. That is how TBS judges the show. How TBS judges the show is the most important metric I have for the performance. I do think what we did last week added a lot of intrigue to this match and I’m very excited for the Dynasty pay-per-view and I’m very happy about how we got here.

-Later, Khan was asked about Punk claiming he had to pay for his own surgery and physical therapy after his injury in 2022. This was his response:

We typically do pay those expenses.I’d have to look into that. We can’t say for sure. It doesn’t sound right to me. If that is the case, then I would reimburse him, honestly. I didn’t think that was the case and it doesn’t sound right, so I would have to look into that. Good question, but typically we do cover those medical expenses, especially for something that occurred in the ring, as that did. So, I would have to look into that. But no, I’m not sure about that. I can’t say for sure.

-Someone asked Khan about the decision to stream upcoming AEW pay-per-views on multiple platforms, including TrillerTV and Youtube, alongside its normal option on Bleacher Report. He says that he’s uncertain if that trend will continue after this upcoming three-month stretch, nor does he comment on why Warner Bros. Discovery allowed that to happen.

-The AEW Trios and Ring of Honor Six-Man Tag Team titles will be unified Sunday in the match between The Bang Bang Gang and The Acclaimed. One of the competitors in that match was injured, which is why it didn’t get announced until recently.

-Talking metrics, Khan says that AEW is up year-over-year due to the increase PPV schedule. He said the reason for the release of the full PPV schedule for the year was an initiative from new hire, Kosha Irby.

-Khan does expect the full AEW/ROH library to be available to fans in the next media rights renewal. They are still in the exclusive negotiation window with WBD on those rights. He said the hire of Carlos Cabrera was Mike Mansury’s idea after having worked with him in WWE. Khan said he listened to fan feedback to upgrade their Spanish language presentation. He added that Mansury is fluent in Spanish.