The long run of AEW has been a highly regarded topic following a recent article from The Hollywood Reporter, who dived into the 519 statement issued by Netflix and Warner Brothers Discovery regarding a revised all-cash offer for Netflix to buy Warner Brothers and its portfolio. This naturally raised some concerns amongst AEW fans as Netflix already has a take care of WWE price $5 billion, and the thought of Netflix having two rival promotions under the identical umbrella doesn’t look likely. Dave Meltzer commented on the situation during a recent episode of “Wrestling Observer Radio,” where he all but confirmed that AEW wouldn’t be featured on Netflix, but a standalone HBO MAX service owned by Netflix is not out of the query.
“They are not going to place AEW on Netflix. I’m absolutely, almost as sure as sure may be, because Netflix has already been turning down much greater entities, including UFC, including Major League Baseball, that are much greater entities, they only want big shows. Now, could they, in theory, pay for AEW pay-per-view shows and put them on Netflix? I do not think so–I mean they might, they might, they could do this because they’re fascinated by big events, but I do not think they’ll due to WWE. I do not think they are going to put one other pro wrestling promotion on Netflix. But so far as weekly TV’s, they don’t desire that. I feel it’s extremely clear that in all of their negotiations with everyone, it’s like ‘We wish big events, we don’t desire weekly TV.’ They didn’t want TKO’s boxing promotion regardless that they have WWE, they didn’t need a full schedule of UFC’s, they only wanted big events.”
Meltzer did say that he can see HBO MAX wanting to maintain some form of AEW programming despite being owned by Netflix resulting from WBD getting a cut of the pay-per-view revenue. He also noted that AEW’s original contract for “AEW Dynamite” was for the show to air on TNT, however the show was moved to TBS in 2022 after the NHL rights were secured by WBD, so whether AEW will likely be moved off of HBO MAX sooner than the tip of 2027 when the initial media rights deal expires stays to be seen.
Will AEW Leave HBO MAX In 2026?
While the pay-per-views have a probability of staying on HBO MAX, and even making it to Netflix as special shows, Meltzer confirmed that “AEW Dynamite” and “AEW Collision” wouldn’t be going anywhere near Netflix. The shows will reportedly be heading to the Turner Sports streaming service that launches in the summertime of 2026, but Meltzer believes that WBD will honor the agreement they have already got with AEW, and that TBS and TNT will remain the house of AEW’s weekly programming until the tip of the media rights deal, despite a lot of the sports coverage on HBO MAX migrating to Turner Sports later this yr.
“Obviously, they are going to be on TBS and TNT until 2027, or 2028 if the choice’s picked up, and it is a weird one now because in the event that they’re two separate corporations like what? Do they each pick up the choice? What if one does and one doesn’t? How does–what type of money do they get? It’s a very weird thing. But obviously they are going to keep their TV on the stations because those [stations], that is the only TV. Netflix shouldn’t be having a TV station, but they’ll stay on HBO MAX, they’ll not go on the Turner Sports streaming service that may start from scratch probably this summer, where all of the sports which are on HBO MAX are going, aside from the contract essentially says that it can stick with HBO MAX, which is what we were told, until 2027. At that time, the entire world’s going to alter.”
Meltzer rounded out by saying that Netflix has promised to maintain HBO MAX as a separate entity when the sale for Warner Brothers does eventually close, but he doesn’t see that lasting for long as it might be much easier for Netflix to have the whole lot under one umbrella fairly than two.
Please credit “Wrestling Observer Radio” when using quotes from this text, and provides a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.