Dave Meltzer Breaks Down Ramifications Of Netflix's WB Acquisition & Effect On AEW

It was officially announced this morning that Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery have come to an agreement on an acquisition, with the streaming giant set to absorb the Warner Bros. half of the conglomerate. Writing in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter before the news was made official, Dave Meltzer noted the likelihood of the Netflix acquisition and discussed some of the situation's details.

While it's too soon to know how exactly this will impact AEW, there are a few possibilities. Meltzer pointed out that the wrestling promotion has previously been considered entertainment rather than sports, falling into the Warner Bros. bucket rather than Discovery. Since Netflix is not absorbing most of WBD's sports properties and rights, there is belief that those elements would be spun off into their own standalone streaming service. If negotiations take place and AEW moves from HBO Max to this new streaming service, it would drastically lower visibility for "AEW Dynamite" and "Collision."

For now, Netflix is expected to keep HBO Max running as a separate platform. At the very least, this would keep WWE and AEW programming on different services, though both would be owned by Netflix. The media rights agreement AEW signed with WBD last year runs through the end of 2027, but this is complicated by the fact that AEW streams on HBO Max and broadcasts on TNT and TBS, and those brands will soon be split across two separate companies.

Meltzer also cited a Bloomberg article about the deal that included the fact that Netflix has offered a $5 billion "breakup fee" that it would pay to WBD if regulators block the deal from finalizing. According to CNBC, the total value of the deal is over $82 billion.

Executives at Paramount, which was the other frontrunner for purchasing the assets, are said to be unhappy with the way negotiations unfolded, believing that their company is the only one that would get through the impending regulatory process. As a result, according to Meltzer, people within Paramount are discussing ways to approach WBD shareholders to convince them that the Netflix deal will be denied and they'd be better off going with Paramount.

Paramount executives aren't the only ones upset. The report noted that there is an open letter being drafted by major players in Hollywood addressed to the United States congress, laying out concerns about Netflix owning one of the industry's biggest studios and the negative impact that would have on movie theaters.