NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE - JULY 29: Eric Bischoff speaks onstage at The Roast of Ric Flair at Nashville Fairgrounds on July 29, 2022 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images)
On a recent edition of his “Wise Choices” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff discussed AEW nearing completion of a new TV deal with Warner Bros. Discovery as their current agreement expires by the end of the year.
As we’ve been reporting here on eWn, the new AEW-WBD deal is for four years, with three years guaranteed and a one-year option. The contract will fetch AEW $170 million annually and allow to air shows twice weekly on TBS, TNT, and TruTV.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On AEW not having an exclusive deal with WBD: “No, that was a head-scratcher for me. Because you know, I think the $170 million is less than what everybody was hoping for and was speculated about a year ago or six months ago. But it’s still a lot of money. And if I’m spending $170 million with a producer who’s supplying me with a lot of content, I don’t want that same content on competitive networks. I think for $170 million, I’m expecting exclusivity. So, the fact that AEW was able to get non-exclusive status is a head-scratcher for me.
“Look, I know everybody’s — you know, when you say FS1, ‘Oh, it’s FOX.’ No, it isn’t. Well, it is, it’s owned by Fox. But FS1 is a microchannel. It’s a catch-all. There’s so much garbage on FS1, and it’s random. Yeah, it’s just random, almost infomercial-quality s**t. So it’s not a big deal, and it’s not going to be a lot of money. It’s exposure. And maybe there’s a strategy. Maybe — again, I don’t know. Maybe there’s a strategy there, where the idea being that let’s let more people outside of the Turner footprint know about AEW, hopefully to attract some of them over to the Turner network to watch some of the core show. The A-Show and the B-shows. Dynamite, Collision, whatever. Perhaps that’s a strategy. But anybody who thinks that there’s going to be any meaningful amount of money associated with FS1, has never done business with FS1. You’re looking at $50,000 an episode budget.”
On FOX paying big money, just put AEW on FS1: “I don’t know. I haven’t tried to pitch a show to FS1 — I don’t think I’ve ever pitched a show to FS1. They didn’t have any money when I was producing television, so I never went out of my way to — never took a meeting at FS1 for that reason. They just didn’t have budgets that made sense. Perhaps they do now. I don’t know, that’s a good question. And unless you’re in the business of selling shows to networks on a day-to-day basis, nobody would really have an honest answer to that, and I certainly don’t.”