It appears Turner Sports is going all-in on AEW.
After months of speculation and negotiations, All Elite Wrestling is expected to announce a television deal with Turner as part of the upcoming WarnerMedia upfronts in New York The news was first reported by The Wrap. SEScoops has reached out to AEW and Turner for comment.
According to the report, AEW will air a weekly show on TNT starting later this year.
The new professional wrestling promotion being funded by Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan with his son Tony Khan acting as AEW president has received a ton of interest since first unveiling the company.
AEW was founded by former WWE superstar Cody along with the sibling tag-team duo the Young Bucks (Matt and Nick Jackson) after they put on a pay-per-view on their own last year titled ‘All In’. The success of that show led them to explore starting their own professional wrestling promotion and eventually AEW was created.
Since first announcing the formation of the promotion, AEW has inked deals with several high profile professional wrestlers including former New Japan Pro Wrestling champion Kenny Omega as well as former WWE superstar PAC, who was previously known by the moniker ‘Neville’.
As far as Turner’s involvement, the company is now part of the giant AT&T conglomerate that also includes entities such as DirecTV, HBO, TBS and numerous other outlets.
Turner — under former owner Ted Turner — was a prominent force in the professional wrestling industry for decades while airing programming for NWA and then eventually WCW. Turner was in the middle of the infamous ‘Monday Night Wars’, which saw their WCW Monday Nitro go head to head with WWE’s Monday Night RAW.
Eventually, Turner got out of the pro wrestling business when they sold WCW to WWE.
Now it appears the new leadership at Turner from AT&T is interested in getting back into the deep end of the professional wrestling business with this new deal with AEW. Of course, WWE remains the biggest pro wrestling entity in the world but now it appears they will have a direct competitor after AEW landed a television deal of their own.
The first major AEW show since announcing the launch will take place on May 25 at the ‘Double or Nothing’ pay-per-view from Las Vegas with the show airing on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.
An official announcement of the television deal will reportedly be made at the WarnerMedia upfronts in New York with Tony Khan and several of the wrestlers from AEW expected to appear.
