It is so important to double source. To believe a $288M / year valuation for AEW TV rights is ... special.
Just using common sense, NXT saw about a 25% increase in the demo YoY for the second quarter of 2024. They got a 60% rights increase ($15M to $25M).
SmackDown is up like 15% in the demo YoY. It got a 40% increase, $205M to $287M. RAW is harder to determine because Netflix got a lot of other international programming.
Collision is down like 35% YoY. Dynamite is down 17%. Those are the "A" shows.
WrestleNomics had AEW's ABD TV rights at about $68M for 2023. If someone said that WBD would value it at $288M - a 235% increase - wouldn't you double source that number before putting it out there?!
It's bad for AEW too because if people believe that number, anything less will seem like a disappointment (or a massive disappointment depending on how much less).
- Raj Giri