Last week, All Elite Wrestling founder and all-around boss Tony Khan confirmed that the popular weekly show Rampage had been canceled "for the foreseeable future."
The final episode of Rampage aired last night, but before it did, Khan took part in a public call to explain why the promotion's second-ever series had been shut down.
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Khan sat in on the AEW Worlds End 2024 media call and eventually addressed the cancelation of Rampage, explaining it as a part of AEW's new TV deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, which starts in January and runs through December 2027.
"I think [the WBD deal is] a great situation for AEW. We're getting a new media rights agreement that is huge for us for many reasons," Khan said. "It is a massive opportunity for AEW to be able to simulcast our shows and reach new viewers through the streaming service, Max. By streaming on Max simulcast, along with every Wednesday on TBS and every Saturday on TNT, to complement that with also simulcasting, it's a huge opportunity for us.
Rampage and Battle of the Belts were not included in this new WBD streaming deal, however. It appears that the financial benefits of the deal outweighed keeping Rampage and, according to Khan, will have a huge impact on the company as a whole.
"The deal was very favorable for AEW. We were able to get rights fees that are many times larger than what we had in our first five years," Khan continued. "It completely changes the financial picture of AEW, and it is a big target that we have aspired to for many years. Part of the agreement is that we would focus on these four hours and really, it's so important to us that we launched AEW Collision last year."
Khan also reinforced that AEW's focus was on Dynamite and Collision; it can be inferred that Rampage simply was not as much of a breakout success as its sister series and thus canceled.
"Rampage has been a great, great show for us," Khan said. "For the foreseeable future, we're gonna focus our resources on Dynamite and Collision because Dynamite and Collision, the rights fees around those shows have skyrocketed. That is the way we built it up, and that was why this deal made so much sense for us and why it's such a great opportunity to focus on Wednesdays and Saturdays."
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The AEW boss was also asked how the company will adjust to the loss of an hour of weekly programming, something he put a positive spin on as "a re-imagination of the calendar."
"As for how we'll reimagine the roster and how we'll utilize everybody going forward, it's a fair question to ask and it's something we'll have to look at," Khan explained. "When Collision first launched, we had been doing AEW for many years with three hours, with only two primetime hours... It will be a change, doing four hours instead of five hours, but again the company is growing, and it's going to be a great opportunity for AEW, but it is a change."
However, he also admitted that the company was focusing more on the "opportunity" of the new streaming deal and what financial leeway it could give them more than anything else.
"I can't say right now how we'll accommodate that...With the company getting significantly more money," Khan said. "Many times more money to produce these four hours of TV and focus on that, and then carry that over into the streaming platform...we'll be much, much, much better off as a company with this deal."
Under a new agreement, AEW's flagship shows, Dynamite and Collision, will continue airing on TBS and TNT, respectively, with both also simulcast on Max. Starting in late 2025, AEW pay-per-views will be available for purchase on Max. The deal is valued at approximately $185 million annually.
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