Yesterday, we broke the news that on Monday, as part of a “town hall” meeting among staff at TNA investor/financier Anthem Sports and Entertainment, CEO Leonard Asper had some advice for employees. That advice was to be careful what they tell some co-workers about business matters, because those who work for the company’s news arm might be obligated to report it. Today, we can confirm another item from the meeting: Asper said that Anthem was receiving a new investment imminently, and it was a factor in their current expansion, which includes funding TNA.
In his speech to staff, Asper explained that he was fine with the news of the investor going public, but couldn’t share their identity as of yet. It will take “about…probably 20 to 30 days” before there’s an official announcement, because they need to “finalize the paperwork and all of that.” Putting money into TNA was named as one of their “expansionary moves,” as was Anthem’s acquisition of of GameTV. That deal was announced in August, the same month that Anthem started putting money into TNA.
Asper also explained the reasoning behind the TNA deal in very broad strokes. “I wanna sort of talk about TNA a little bit, because it really comes back to content,” he began. “And what we’re finding with the distribution as some of you know, is it’s harder and harder to get distribution, it’s harder to get a DirecTV, or even on the web, to get people to view you if you’re just licensing somebody else’s content or doing your own. And just pure talking heads.” The last reference presumably refers to The Fight Network’s original programming being heavy on news and analysis shows shot on their news desk set.
“So what we’re trying to do more of is acquire content, or at least get closer to it, develop relationships with the people who do own the content,” Asper said, “because if we don’t, they’re gonna go direct to the consumer around us.” He also told the staff that “you’ll probably see more of” TNA-esque deals to get content for their platforms.
