During Thursday’s AEW Dynasty 2024 media call, Tony Khan discussed a variety of topics including AEW’s revenue in 2024 so far, the possibility of himself stepping down and hiring someone else as the head booker for All Elite Wrestling, and more.
You can check out some highlights from the media call below:
On potentially stepping down and hiring someone else as booker: “That’s a great question. Well, I… would certainly at some point, you know, we’d have to see where we’re at. I think with all positions, you know, nobody lasts forever and eventually that’s something, you know, with any position in any of the organizations I’m in, that will be a reality. I think whether it’s the Jaguars or Fulham or AEW or True Media, you know, I won’t be here forever. So, you know, it’s definitely one of the highlights of my life, being able to get involved in these shows, work on these shows and do creative planning, and I’m having more fun than ever right now. Really loved last night’s show, I thought last night was a really strong go-home Dynamite leading into this PPV. And you know, I take it year to year, moment to moment and I’m really loving what we’re doing right now. I’m only 41 years old and I feel like the company is in a really strong place. And some of the greatest wrestlers in the world are very loyal to me personally, and I really am very proud of that, and hopefully I can continue to do my best to repay them. And I think right now the company is in a very strong place. We just had a valuation, I understand, of $2 billion placed on AEW today for a sports start-up, the fastest-rising sports start-up of all time. And the most successful sports start-up in the world since the American Football League, the AFL, that later merged with the NFL. I don’t see that same future for us, but I do love the comparison and I think the numbers are quite real, and frankly, the story is very exciting for AEW.
“Look, we are a major player in the sports scene and it’s going to be a really big year for our company coming up with our media rights renewal, and it’s the most important thing right now for the wrestlers and the staff and everybody that works at AEW and for our fans and everybody that follows AEW. And another really important aspect aspect of this is the PPV growth. We’ve grown the business and last year we expanded the PPV calendar, and we had our by far biggest year ever on PPV And we expect to continue this year. We saw the average go up last year while we increased shows this year, expanding the calendar, and the expansion is this show. This is the added show, Dynasty, the one that happens this weekend. And this is a stacked card. It’s one of my favorite cards we’ve ever put together. And the build we’ve done to get here, there have been some tremendous moments. Last night was a really good go-home show. And on these calls, these calls are usually on the Thursday after the go-home Dynamite. And we’ve actually spent a decent amount of time — I say we, you know, the collection of us that are often on these calls myself, and a lot of you, the top wrestling media. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about the science of the go-home Show and the different ways they’re put together, and I think this was one of our best received go-home shows we’ve ever done. And this was really — for me, it’s always exciting, and there’s a risk when you add a new event, change the calendar, do something like creating a new show that is AEW Dynasty.”
On AEW’s revenue: “Yes, Q1 2024, the revenue is significantly up. We’ve run more events, we’ve added AEW Collision, and AEW Dynamite is strong. We’ve had good attendance, in some markets year-over-year the attendance up. In particular, a lot of really successful shows in this run, like great events including Boston, Toronto, AEW Revolution was one of our top US gates ever. Then on the PPV side, AEW Revolution in Q1 is one of the biggest AEW PPV shows of all time. It was our biggest PPV since last year’s AEW All In and surpassed last year’s Revolution. Last year’s Revolution did really well, it was one of the best PPV shows of the year. A lot of people thought that it was the best PPV show of the year. It included MJF vs. Brian Danielson in the 60-minute Iron Man match and a lot of great wrestling, great show. This year the show did even better. The gate was up and the PPV buys were significantly up for what was Sting’s final encounter, the last pro wrestling match of Sting.
“On a personal level, it’s probably the greatest thing I’ve ever been a part of, and greatest night I’ve ever been a part of, and it was a very successful business. So with more shows, more PPV revenue, it’s been more revenue this year. So big growth there and a lot of opportunities. Also, our rights fee was higher with the 2024 option getting picked up vs. 2023 for Dynamite and the addition of more shows. We had significantly higher revenue in 2024. So it is, you know, big growth and also big opportunities going into the media rights renewal year and continuing to grow the business going into 2025.”