Dave Meltzer On WBD Sale: 'They're Not Gonna Put AEW On Netflix'

The future of AEW has been a very hot 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 purchase Warner Brothers and its portfolio. This naturally raised some concerns amongst AEW fans as Netflix already has a deal with WWE worth $5 billion, and the idea of Netflix having two rival promotions under the same 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 would not be featured on Netflix, but a standalone HBO MAX service owned by Netflix isn't out of the question.

"They're not going to put AEW on Netflix. I'm absolutely, almost as sure as sure can be, because Netflix has already been turning down much bigger entities, including UFC, including Major League Baseball, which are much bigger entities, they only want big shows. Now, could they, in theory, pay for AEW pay-per-view shows and put them on Netflix? I don't think so–I mean they could, they could, they might do that because they are interested in big events, but I don't think they will because of WWE. I don't think they're going to put another pro wrestling promotion on Netflix. But as far as weekly TV's, they don't want that. I think it's very clear that in all of their negotiations with everyone, it's like 'We want big events, we don't want weekly TV.' They didn't want TKO's boxing promotion even though they've got WWE, they didn't want a full schedule of UFC's, they only wanted big events."

Meltzer did say that he can see HBO MAX wanting to keep some sort of AEW programming despite being owned by Netflix due to 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, but the show was moved to TBS in 2022 after the NHL rights were secured by WBD, so whether AEW will be moved off of HBO MAX earlier than the end of 2027 when the initial media rights deal expires remains to be seen.

While the pay-per-views have a chance of staying on HBO MAX, or even making it to Netflix as special shows, Meltzer confirmed that "AEW Dynamite" and "AEW Collision" would not be going anywhere near Netflix. The shows will reportedly be heading to the Turner Sports streaming service that launches in the summer of 2026, but Meltzer believes that WBD will honor the agreement they already have with AEW, and that TBS and TNT will remain the home of AEW's weekly programming until the end of the media rights deal, despite most of the sports coverage on HBO MAX migrating to Turner Sports later this year.

"Obviously, they're going to be on TBS and TNT until 2027, or 2028 if the option's picked up, and it's a weird one now because if they're two separate companies like what? Do they both pick up the option? What if one does and one doesn't? How does–what kind of money do they get? It's a really weird thing. But obviously they're going to keep their TV on the stations because those [stations], that's the only TV. Netflix is not having a TV station, but they will stay on HBO MAX, they will not go on the Turner Sports streaming service that will start from scratch probably this summer, where all the sports that are on HBO MAX are going, other than the contract essentially says that it will stay with HBO MAX, which is what we were told, until 2027. At that point, the whole world's going to change."

Meltzer rounded out by saying that Netflix has promised to keep 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 would be much easier for Netflix to have everything under one umbrella rather than two.

Please credit "Wrestling Observer Radio" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.