83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff #37: AEW & Warner Bros. Discovery ft. Andrew Zarian

Episode Date: July 28, 2023

On this edition of "Strictly Business," Eric Bischoff and Jon Alba welcome in media personality Andrew Zarian, who provides unique perspective on AEW's current relationship with Warner Bros. Discovery. Special thanks to this week's sponsor! Manscaped- Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code WRESTLEBIZ at Manscaped.com.. FOLLOW ALL OF OUR SOCIAL MEDIA at https://83weekslinks.com/ Stop throwing your money on rent! Get into a house with NO MONEY DOWN and roughly the same monthly payment at SaveWithConrad.com On AdFreeShows.com, you get early, ad-free access to more than a dozen of your favorite wrestling podcasts, starting at just $9! And now, you can enjoy the first week...completely FREE! Sign up for a free trial - and get a taste of what Ad Free Shows is all about. Start your free trial today at AdFreeShows.com If your business targets 25-54 year old men, there's no better place to advertise than right here with us on Strictly Business. You've heard us do ads for some of the same companies for years...why? Because it works! And with our super targeted audience, there's very little waste. Go to AdvertiseWithEric.com now and find out more about advertising with Strictly Business. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone, John Alba here, co-host of Strictly Business with Eric Bischoff. And what I love about wrestling podcasts most is that there's so much variety out there. And that's why I want to tell you about the other podcast I host right here on podcast, heat and ad-free shows.com, the extreme life of Matt Hardy. Every single Friday, you can hear the future Hall of Famer, one half of the iconic Hardy Boys tag team, the broken and woken one himself, Mr. Matt Hardy, tell great stories from his three decades in the wrestling industry from a fairly unique perspective. Few people have gone through the

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and skip your next two house payments at savewithconrad.com. NMLS number 65084, equal housing lender. You don't need perfect credit or money out of your pocket to save thousands with save withconrad.com. Find out how much money you can save right now at save withconrad.com. How's it going, everyone? It's time for another edition of Strictly Business with Mr. Eric Fischoff. I, of course, am John Albaugh joined as I am every single week.

By the man I just got to hang out with this past week in Baltimore, Maryland, Mr. Eric Bischoff. You've been on the road, my friend. Seems like you're home for a hot second. How have your travel's been treating you? you know i can't really complain i'm not a big fan of traveling anymore as anybody that listens to my podcast knows but i have to say the flights went smoothly so as far as traveling goes in twenty three it was probably as good as you can get heading back out it had fun in baltimore and uh headed right after i got back from baltimore and went to providence rhode island

and east greenwich rhoda island to the line side of brewing had a great best trivia ever event shout out to Best Trivia ever.com, BTE.com. And they had a great team, a great turnout, had a blast. And now I'm, as we're recording this, I'm going to shortly after we're done, I'm going to pack up and head to New York. So yeah, I've been busy.

We had a blast at our strictly business, 83 weeks, a live show with MCW. Thank you to them for having us. How to feel to get in front of all those fans again this week, get to answer some great questions. I know you talked about this. at our live show, and I'd love for you to kind of divulge into it here, just that unique connection you were able to form with fans

when they tell you how much they appreciate your contributions to not just the industry, but to their lives as well. That's got to make you feel good, man. It will always, you know, I'm human. So that stuff affects me, just like it would and should anybody. But I think, you know, the stories that I hear that touch me the most, And I remember are the ones we had a young man that had had issues and ended up in treatment for a long time and got out. And during his treatment, he had a mental issue.

And wrestling was the one thing that helped get him through it. And to hear those stories is just, I don't know, it makes you feel good on how it can. Absolutely. It was a great turnout. Go check out MCW and all the events they put on. appreciate them for having us well to do some more live events in the future on this week's episode strictly business we're going to have a special guest but before we get to that eric this was brought to my attention on social media today and someone actually asked me to tee up on i thought

it would be a great discussion point 10 years ago today as we record this july 28th total divas premiered and in my opinion eric total divas totally changed the perception of women in the pro wrestling industry and created an entirely new crossover audience for WWE. I'd love your perspective. That's something we've never talked about here, but it feels like one of the very few times that reality TV really truly benefited wrestling in a very tangible way. Do you have any thoughts on that? No, I think it was kind of a pivot point, I think, in terms of the way that the audience viewed women in professional wrestling. Not so much with the with the hardcore fans. because they were already on board, right?

But I think what that show Totally Davis really did for WWE was reach an entirely different audience that perhaps didn't watch wrestling, became so interested in the characters because in a reality format, when it's done well, and that one was, it was produced well, there's so much story and character that you get to know. That's what makes reality television work,

is when you get to know and feel like you identify with certain individuals in the cast. to some of you may love, some of you may hate, some of whom you feel are kind of like you in a way. That's the magic of reality television when it's done well. So you've got an audience of women, younger women, obviously, on that network, e-network, that were being exposed to something that they probably didn't know existed

and found very interesting and most likely migrated over to some extent. And wrestling truly was just the backdrop to that show too, Eric. It was more or less the setting, whereas it was very character heavy and those drove the stories. Did you ever at any point throughout your TV production career ever consider pitching something like that where it's kind of periphery wrestling, not necessarily wrestling centric per se? I guess there were several projects that came across our desk. Some of them we tried to develop internally, others that were presented to us by other independent producers that wanted to collaborate with us. There were several. None of them that really stuck out in my minds that I could point to one and break it down and talk about it.

But I would say there were at least six or eight different versions of total divas that made it. And that's usually the way TV works, right? You see something on television and it works and everybody scrambles to come up with the version 2.0 or version 10.0, as the case may be. But yeah, we saw a lot of different formats, but nothing that we could really sick your teeth into. It's just interesting because I look at the AW All Access show that Warner Brothers. Discovery experimented with this year. And I was saying to myself watching a couple of the episodes that while it gave some cool access, I wasn't really sure what it was offering that hasn't been offered before

in the space. And I feel like Total Divas really did offer something that was very different than what people were used to. Why do you think, I don't want words in your mouth, but do you or do you not think that shows like that all access do they have a ceiling in terms of their limitations in their audience you know i'm not familiar with that show but i can tell you any show that gives you a look into the the inner workings of the backstage area as the backdrop it's tricky because you what makes reality shows work are conflict and drama or the drama that the results of

conflict and you have to set certain situations up or put people in certain situations where you know you get to see a side of that personality and that character that human not necessarily the wrestling character but the person you're watching on television you see a part of them that you you didn't know or you you never noticed before when you're in that backstage area when you're actually producing a show and we've had i had a lot of those shows come my way when jason and i were producing independently but the problem with it is is that back that's a working environment back there and there are certain things you don't want people to see there's certain things of talent don't want people to see and it's all going on in

in front of the cameras one way shape or form with the exception of maybe the restrooms and the locker rooms but even then um i've seen a lot of cameras in our and locker rooms but it's not a real setting so you're not really serving you're not really you're not serving the professional wrestling audience or you're not really serving the reality of audience because you can't create the conflict of the drama in a backstage real life production environment if that makes sense. Well, it was a show that Warner Brothers Discovery really tried to push hard in recent months. And with that in mind, I figured that we should bring in somebody who's pretty well versed with what's going on over at Warner Brothers Discovery right

now in the relationship that they have with AEW. And he also has some knowledge of the general landscape with what's been going on with WWE as well. He's one of the premier podcasters and pro wrestling and he's one of the most reliable sources of information for this particular topic. He is Andrew Zarian from the Matman. What's going on, Andrew? How you doing today, my man? Hey, John. Hey, Eric. What's going on?

This is a blast from me. First of all, this is a personal treat. Eric, this is the first gift my wife ever gave me when we started dating. She went to Barnes & Noble and bought this book. And it's become, she actually read it after I had read it and became, she loved it. So this is a little tree for me. I told her I'm going on the show and she's like with the Eric Bischoff. I'm like, yeah, the Eric Bischoff.

I'm going on the show. And of course, she knows John. So she's always a big fan of John. No, this is a pleasure. And it's been a wild couple of years for me when it comes to wrestling because this was not what I intended on doing in my life. Yeah. So tell me what, and by the way, I love your studio, dude.

You're making me look really, really cheap here and making John look even cheaper. Oh, yeah. We've got to get them a new sign or something. But no, man, awesome look you got there. Tell me about your background. You know, John, John gave me a little bit of info. But for our listeners who don't know you or of you, what is your background? I started off in technology.

I was a tech podcaster for years. And I saw podcasting and I saw how media was shifting. So I started something small with my friends called The Guys from Queens Network. It was a small-time podcast with a couple stand-up comics from New York. and it grew. It shockingly became a thing. And we started getting significant coverage and people were watching. And this is back in 2008, 9, 10, 11. And we got a couple advertisers. And it became a business for me for a number of years. And I slowly transitioned into consulting and building sets like this and helping people out with their setups. And then that somehow led me into

the nightlife hospitality industry in New York City. And I have a number of clients here that I, that I, you know, help guide their businesses and their marketing and how their sales teams are doing and what they could do to kind of improve post-pandemic. I'm really all over the place with that. I'm in the hair industry in some weird capacity. I work with hair loss doctors, hair transplant doctors to set up, you know, their marketing and their studio setups. A lot of them are doing podcasting. So a little bit of just things that I really enjoy. And wrestling is one of that. And media is one of those. And I think all the day, different odds and ends jobs that I've had in career paths. It's kind of led me into knowing

a lot of people that are now in key positions in media and in all different types of, you know, categories that that helped me day to day with, with my businesses. Outstanding. How long have you been a wrestling fan? Oh, my whole life since I was probably four, five. My dad would take me to the garden with his, with my uncle and we go to all those garden shows and it just, it's something that I was never able to let go of in my life. You know, a lot of people transition out of it. You know, you watch it. You're a kid. You're watching the ultimate war. Hulk Hogan. And then you never get back into it. I just consistently stayed watching, you know, throughout 96, 97. And it really, it's, it became

not an obsession, you know, it was always been like a thing that I've enjoyed watching. And I never, I was talking to John about that. I never thought I would be talking about wrestling on the internet. You know, it's not something I ever seek. And still, it's just, I enjoy it. This is like my therapy that I'm able to do this. And I think that's some of the success comes from no pressure because I don't really do it for a career path. I do it because, A, I see a lot of nonsense out there that I think it needs to be corrected, especially when it comes to media and sales and how ratings work and TV. And a lot of it is just my personal therapy. This is a release for me. And it's great. I love it. I told you, Eric, you and Andrew are cut from the same cloth. And I think you're going to

grow to like him quite a bit over the course of this. I hope so. Andrew, like he said, he's very much embedded in the New York nightlife scene and he's made a lot of contacts through it. And somehow, some way, as you said, you have found yourself here on the front lines of media reporting somehow with AW Warner, a little bit of the WWE stuff

as well. What has been the most surprising development for you in that arena, Andrew, over the course of the last year. How fast everything is changing for linear. And a lot of the insight that I've learned. It's a very unique, it's a very unique perspective. You know, I'm lucky that I have, I've made friends over the years,

and a lot of these friends are now in key positions in certain places. And talking that, their perspective of wrestling is so different than the perspective of, you know, just really P1 level fans, you know, that the hardcore of the fan base, It's a very different perspective. And it's, and also on top of that, having two young kids six and seven years old that are now getting into wrestling, seeing their perspective and their friends perspective really gives me a different type of insight than what I personally like to watch. It's not, when I cover wrestling, obviously, I talk about the things that I love and I, that, that, that, you know, pop for me as far as watching TV and seeing my eyes lighting up. But it's very different than what the overall fan base wants or the overall viewership wants.

And it's been an interesting insight of kind of seeing bounds between, you know, what the fans like, what the networks are looking for, what the sales teams are looking for, what marketing wants to do. It's all different perspectives. And it gives a very unique outlook that is not on the internet. You don't get to see it on Twitter. People aren't talking about, well, this one should go over in a match because the marketing behind him is going to be elevating him. You know, these are very different perspectives. And when you kind of see that, it changes the whole way you view wrestling as an industry. Can you give me, and I know you just gave me a little bit of an example there, but could you pick out of all the misconceptions that the wrestling fandom in the internet wrestling universe have a professional wrestling and where the business is?

If there's one thing that you could say is the biggest misconception, what would that be? Um, the hyper focus on ratings week over week is one that's very obsessive by the fans, but most people on the network sides really don't understand. Um, a lot of times these people that are, that are, you know, making decisions. They're not, they're not the biggest wrestling fans. So you're getting a, a very different perspective on how they're selling it. Uh, one would be, you know, uh, with AEW, for example, right? And, and you brought up something interesting.

One of your podcasts, Eric, you said, um, at the time of like all the turmoil in WCW. And I don't want to single out anybody, obviously. But you said false reporting really played a part in the perspective of what the product was, what WCW was, some positive, some negative. But a lot of the things that people are dwelling over on the internet, it does play a part in decision making when you're not a wrestling fan. And I don't think the Twitterverse, you know, kind of sees that.

I think they think it's in a very bubbled way. And let's say when I cover wrestling, I really don't cover it as far as, you know, the nitty, like the small, minute details that people obsess over. I look at it as a whole, an overall business. I think, you know, the length of the match is not something that is really discussed or the foot movement or the quality of a five-star match. These are not things that anybody at these networks are ever mentioning. That helps. If that answered your question.

Absolutely. And it's fascinating. because on one hand, you would think, okay, there's going to be some people at the network level who are embedded in the programming. But on the other side of it, the decision makers, I'd imagine look at it from a much more macro perspective in regards, specifically in this case, Warner Brothers discovery in AEW. What have you noticed out of the growth of the relationship between those two entities, especially in the last six months or so, as we've seen the addition of collision and the reality show. What is your read on the relationship between the two entities? I think there's a major

commitment there on the Warner side to get a second show. You know, you're doing five hours of content now weekly on a turn of property. There's a lot of commitment there. There's confidence in there. And it just, it's the landscape of television. You know, linear TV is slowly, it's going to take a while to get phased out. But when you're looking at a rating of 893,000 viewers on TBS, you know, it kind of gives you to perspective. And there's still number one or two for the night. It tells you that the landscape has totally changed. And people's viewing habits are totally all over the place. You're not just competing with WWE. And I think that from the conversations I've had, you know, over dinner and a couple drinks has always been this. We don't look at,

AW is not competing with WWE directly. They're competing with everything. So, So when we look at programming in general, what's going to get you away from TikTok for that 30 minutes or an hour or two hours? What's going to get you away from, you know, a YouTube video recapping a video game? And that those are things that are always discussed. And the reality is one of the only few things I could do it is live television, especially live sports. So the concentration on live sports is far greater now because of the depletion and viewership overall. You know, cable numbers are dropping yearly. satellite numbers are dropping yearly, but where are they going?

They're still consuming sports. Interesting. Do you ever get a chance to talk? You said something in the very beginning, you know, you get a chance to meet people in positions of influence within the media industry. One of the things that comes up often in discussions about WW, AEW, or just wrestling in general on television, is ad sales. when I was active in the business, particularly up to even after I got out of the business and I was producing reality shows that were themed around wrestling, like Hogan's

Hall Cogan's Celebrity Championship Wrestling, for example. You know, you meet with ad salespeople as a producer, independent producer. You know, the ad sales division of a network cable or otherwise has a lot of influence over the content that's played. and for the most part not all all the time but for the most part when i was active in the industry the ad sales component of any network really didn't want to have a conversation about wrestling it was hard for them to sell they had too many clients that weren't comfortable in wrestling has that changed do you know or is the feeling different today than maybe what i experienced

yeah uh it's funny i spoke to john about this uh we went out for dinner we went to mastros for dinner a couple of weeks ago and we were talking about this uh the like exactly what you said the ad sales team is make a break for any tv show you know if you know howard stern is a great example of howard stern uh if they're at if they're at sales team at k rock or the national sales team didn't like him or didn't like the show it would be over done it doesn't matter if you're getting the viewers if you can't sell the show you can't sell it uh i i i know that a lot of the people now in those ad sales positions grew up watching wrestling uh a couple people that I know at Warner Discovery, they are very positive thinking. And the same goes for

NBCU. I don't really have the relationship on the Fox side as much, but on the NBCU side, they're very committed to selling it because I think a lot of them understand it a little bit better than people that never grew up on the product. So it is changing. Not to say that it's not an easy, you know, it's not a difficult task to sell wrestling. You know, I know that there were some conversations with AEW ad sales in December of 2021 right before the merger or right before the teams kind of combined. They were struggling at some points. And the same goes for WWE also.

You know, it depends on the season and if things are good, if it's a network buy. I mean, Eric, I'm sure you've seen a bunch of, hey, listen, it's a $36,000 read. But if you give us $37,000, we'll also put you on this show. And now all of a sudden, the allocation of the money looks better than it actually is. Um, but as far as I know, uh, it's on the Warner side, they're very positive about selling that show. I, and that is, that is, I don't know if that's a discovery change or not or because I know all the teams change. You know, people moved around, but on the Warner media side, I, I, I do know that from the people that I speak to there, it's positive and the NBCU side too for WWE. I mean,

right now, how could you not want to sell WWE ads? You know, why do you think it's positive from the Warner and with A.A.W. I think because I'm going to be, I think because they got people on that team that are more willing to sell wrestling ads. I think it's a little bit more

organized as far as it might have been 18 months ago or whatever the case was. I think they just have a better team at this point. Hey guys, it's the hardcore legend Mick Foley here and I need to call a quick timeout, a brief time out because I wanted to tell your listeners what I have been telling fully as pod listeners for a while now about all the cool things happening over on ad free shows.com.

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One of the things when I worked at Turner, like a lot of people, that had never experienced a merger before, we believed all the hype. You know, I was famously, I was infamously, I guess, I was at a Christmas party with Ted Turner and Joe Levin, Terry McGurck, Scott Sassah. It was a Turner party, but it was very small, and it was a Terry Mergerck's house. And I'll never forget, I was so naive and excited. This big merger, and Gerald Levin got up, and he said, you know, this is such an amazing opportunity for everybody because we're going to take the entrepreneurial DNA of Turner Broadcasting. And Ted was very, very entrepreneurial. He broke the mold.

And we're going to combine it with this powerhouse in the media industry. and Time Warner and combined, it's going to be the best of both worlds. And I'm nodding my head like a frickin' bobblehead, you know, yay, cheers, Ted. Cheers, Charles, you know, very, very excited. And shortly after that Christmas party, an executive that had been through mergers before, said, Eric, everything's going to be fine for a year, maybe a little longer. You're not going to see any real change culturally. you'll see some, you know, structural things shift around.

But the culture, Turner is going to stay Turner for about a year, year and a half, and then it's all going to start to change. And I went, well, that's a negative way of looking at this, but okay, noted. And he was right on the money. It was like clockwork. All of a sudden, the executives that I knew that were very entrepreneurial. I'm not going to name names because I don't want to come off negative. but people that I was close to, friendly with, and we're very, very high up in the Turner food chain

because those executives, you know, leadership and the tone culturally kind of comes down from the top. And Ted was such a renegade and such an entrepreneur. And that just kind of, that culture filter down. And then all of a sudden one day those same guys that I knew that would show up on Fridays, you know, wearing jeans and a nice dress shirt and drive in with the top down, pretty relaxed. All of a sudden they show up wearing blue suits. white shirts, red ties, and wingtip shoes. The culture shifted from what it was in Turner Broadcasting

to that of something that didn't look at all like Turner Broad. It was more like working for a hedge fund or a bank. It was a completely different cultural shift. With that long-winded backdrop, are you seeing or sensing a shift in the culture that is what now, Warner Discovery? yeah i i think for the people that are there uh you're seeing exactly what you're describing and it's all a media right all the media all sales all a banking right now especially in new york you know coming out of the pandemic you're absolutely right blue jeans and a t-shirt

you're going into work two three days a week and you're working remote now all these guys are working they're going back to work because they're feeling the pressure of performance uh the guys that I know, the handful of guys that they're top-notch people and that they're always operating at that level. But that is the conversation that, listen, those guys that are working remote and don't want to come into the

office and you don't really get FaceTime with, it's going to be really difficult for those guys. And those are the ones that will probably go off and not work in that company. The merger was not easy. I mean, it's never easy. A lot of redundancies and departments and

they downsized a lot of people, but the people that are there, I mean, I think they have a, they have a really, really strong team. As far as I know, you know, from the sales side and from the marketing side, it's a really strong team that gets it. But, Eric, when you were there, did it last a year? Did it actually take a year for everybody to kind of tighten up? Oh, yeah. It was about a year and a half.

That's when you just noticed, just the vibe. Everybody's walking on eggshells. There was a lot of pressure, and that's when you started seeing a lot more significant structural changes and departments disappearing and offices being combined and things like that. And that made people feel uneasy. And that's when I first started noticing the cultural difference. Once people started feeling uneasy and less secure in their positions, they naturally kind of became their counterparts in time war because that's who was making the decisions. You know, it's interesting because the people that I speak to there, they very much talk about AEW as if it's very embedded in the Turner, you know, business model at this point, like for TBS and TNT. They, they're very possessive of it when, when the conversations are happening. You know, I've talked to people at NBC about WWE and it doesn't really, I don't get that same feeling with the, with WWE on NBC on USA or Fox.

This is a very different, more hands involved type. And I find that very interesting, you know, like talking to people on the marketing side of USA for WW, you know, when they're putting a calendar together and they're saying, okay, there's going to be NASCAR integration because we got NASCAR, we got whatever integration, you know, we're going to try to involve in. It's a very different, this is what we're going to do. This is what we pitch to them. They're okay with this. This is the execution date. On the Warner side, it's very different. Like, I'm not saying this is the case.

And this could be a, this is a positive, right? You want people on your team that treat it as if it's theirs. But they treat it as if it's theirs. And I find that, I find that different. I find that it's a very different way from talking to people in all different types of media. I don't, I haven't ever spoken to a marketing team or a sales team that, that acts as if, you know, this is, this is our property. Well, Andrew, something that. Eric has mentioned in recent weeks.

He's even posed the possibility of it is that Warner Bros. Discovery may have some sort of ownership stake in A.W. Do you believe that that is something that may be plausible at this juncture? I wouldn't be surprised. You know, it, I really wouldn't. It would, you know, things that that I've heard would make sense. I don't, I don't know for sure, obviously. If I did, I would say like, yeah, they have, you know, X amount of percent, at 30 percent.

They have 10 percent. I don't know it is I mean it's very possible and I don't know if that's a positive or negative if they are you know if they have a piece of it does that does that change the direction of the company the philosophy of the company does it affect your ad sales better or worse I don't know I would say and I'm guessing here too I don't know either I strongly suspect based on conversations I've had with certain individuals, but I don't know for sure. But I think it would be a positive. And when you've got a long-term relationship with your network partner and they're looking at your property as partially theirs, they're going to care a lot more. They're going to promote a lot more. The downside is, and it's something that just needs to be managed, like any other business, you have to manage your client, service your client, is that you'll have people with an opinion that'll want to get a little bit more involved necessarily than perhaps you would like them to but they've got a stake it's it's

something that has to be managed but the upside of it far outweighs the downside and we saw the differences to andrew two years ago the upfronts with warner brothers discovery where a w is positioned on that versus this past year's upfronts where a w is focused right there alongside every other major Warner sports property. How do you think internally, based on your conversations, Warner views AW as a property? Does it fall into that sports realm? And what about it is so appealing for them in terms of investment? I think it's unique first run programming.

That is sport-centric, I guess, shifts to sports. You know, wrestling is a very unique property. And the history of wrestling, it's always shown that it could draw, viewers, you know, when, when, I mean, you go back when when people were saying, you know, Impact Wrestling, TNA Wrestling, nobody's watching it. They were still getting over a million people watching it, you know, and they, they were behind WW. So if you could draw a million people to watch a product, obviously there's going to be some interest there. I, it is, it is interesting how like they go back and forth, though, right? Because they are sports,

but they're not sports, but they're more treated as if it's sports. I think of some people within Turner treated as sports, but I don't think they sell their ad revenue like it's a sports property. I mean, just based on that would be that would be the, I would have a hard time believing as a person that's been involved in sales in one way, shape, or form all my life, really. I would have a hard time thinking that anybody is going to go into a pitch if you work for Warner ad sales,

trying to convince someone that professional wrestling is sports. I just don't see it. But it is live action. And live action is a word. You see it used often in shows like the American gladiator type shows. You know, Dwayne Johnson had one on NBC. I think it was on NBC for a while. You know, those types of very athletic, you know, Ninja Wars or whatever that,

whatever that ninja show was for a while. Those are sold as live action because live action is unique enough and is close enough to sports, I think, insofar as the way it attracts an audience that may be descriptive programming might not. But I can't believe anybody's like, no, no, this is really just like tennis. It's just like football, really. I think that's a very difficult pitch for the sales team. Hey, the NBA, you're doing great numbers on the NBA. There's about 14 million people that are watching it. And we also have this other thing, wrestling. Have you ever heard of it? you know i want to ask you another question and i'll turn it back over to john because i'm bogey

in this segment here but um have you ever heard the rumor that warner discovery was in on the bid for w i was just going to ask him that eric i i they i heard that but nobody ever told me yes nobody i mean i've asked obviously you know but nobody it was it was downplayed from day one to me so uh and that's a you know that's a very unique thing right you got the number one property available do you put your eggs in that basket you know how does that shift for you how does that change for you obviously it would it would be over for e w on there it would be exclusivity but uh i i never heard it coming from any anybody that i talk to fair enough just ask you about that because

imagine this empire of pro wrestling ending up on one network and what we'd be looking at right now with WW and AEW potentially on the same network so do you see long term I'll just I'll say the word redundantly here longevity do you see longevity for AEW within the Warner Brothers Discovery

world a relationship that will last far beyond where it is right now yeah I mean I I'm I think I'm it's pretty easy and confident to say that they're going to get re-uped you know they're going to if it's signed to a bigger deal. I don't know what it's going to be. If it's a billion dollars, you know, the billion dollars, I don't know if that's,

that's an accurate number. I never heard it from anybody, nobody ever, I mean, they, they, everybody hears the same things, right? But does it make sense a billion dollars for two, for four hours, five hours of content a week over a five year deal? Maybe, you know, but you also, you don't want to be a loss leader forever. You got to, you got to sell ads. So I don't know.

their exact ad revenue. But that's a lot of money for for something you're not confident in. So I think, you know, all the indication getting that other show, still having rampage on, it shows that there's there's a long-term commitment here. And then some of the rumblings about, you know, what happens with pay-per-view distribution over the years. You know, they want to add more shows, 10 to 12 shows a year. You know, where do you put that? Can you charge $50? So these are all conversations that are happening right now they don't they don't have the answer like we don't even know the all in situation right they got two pay-per-views back to back week after week a w pitch to do a bundle and there's still i haven't heard that there was a response to that

there's a conclusion to that yet so a lot of these things are shifting i think they're they're adapting as they go along but yeah i think they at least for the next five years is going to be a major commitment from from you know warner media unless something happens there's a travesty you know the other shoe could drop, the other foot could drop and your ratings could tank and now you become a cold product and obviously there's not going to be a major commitment after that once you're dead in the water. So I think for now they're very happy with the results they're getting, you know, even the 614,000 that they're getting on Saturday, it's been positive. Now, I don't know if they're going to openly start trashing the product to me. I haven't had that happen yet,

but as far as I know, it's it's always positive. They're very happy about having, having this property on with them. I was going to ask you about the pay-per-view distribution thing there. That's a mess. That's a disaster. Okay, well, let's talk about that. You mentioned, we talked about a few weeks ago on this very program, the Sean Ross Sapp report that Warner was pushing AW to potentially expand its pay-per-view programming up to 12

a year, if not more than that. Have you sense that that is a credible report and that there is an internal push from Warner to expand AW programming? what platform does that land on max seems not to be an option at this juncture yeah max is not an option because they don't have the technology integrated to do pay-per-views uh it showtime boxing for example right showtime is the same exact problem where if you have a showtime account and you're a showtime subscriber there's no place on that whatever portal you're using to log in and buy a pay-per-view it's a separate purchase uh so it's a technology problem uh br has it and and max doesn't

I don't know, they want to integrate it. They don't want VR continuing, obviously. It's a useless product for them. So it really comes down to the technology of it. But they, Sean's report is accurate. They are going to do way more pay-per-views. But they have been also, you know, this is, you're, you're doing, what is six, seven, eight pay-per-views right now.

Adding a couple more is not bad. I mean, Tony said, right, in the history of business, has it ever been a bad decision to add more pay-per-views and generate more money? No, it's not. And if they could get 120,000 people that purchase these pay-per-views every month, that's significant. Yeah, the only downside to promoting more pay-per-views is if you don't have the creative horsepower or the talent roster to support them, because it's a lot of pressure. And you have to tell your stories a lot differently. As you, you know, in WCW, when I took over, we only had four pay-per-views a year. But pay-per-view was the only place we could make any money. So I bumped it to

six. And I went, wow, that works really good. Let's do seven. And then it became eight, nine, ten, twelve. WWE followed suit. But it forces you to change your creative. And it forces you to change the trajectory of your stories and your characters to accommodate 12 pay-per-views a year. It's just like a book. You know, if you've got 12 chapters in a book versus is four chapters in the book, well, the chapters are going to be a lot thicker because you have more time. There's going to be more content in those chapters because you have more time to tell that story. But if you've got 12 chapters in that book, then every chapter has to end with the result

with the result that leads you to the next chapter. That just becomes pressure creatively, and they certainly do have the talent, so I don't think that'll ever be an issue. You also have to consider what is the price point your, you're, you're all. audience is willing to pay every month, right? And this is something that's changed. WWE changed that for pro wrestling. WW can't go back and charge you $50 a month for a regular pay-per-view and $79 for, you know, the big four. It's now all all absorbed into Peacock. So if their plan is to do 12

pay-per-views a year, is that, are you bundling that somehow in a max package? Is that going to be a BR package for the year? I can't imagine it's going to be easy to convince your audience in 23 to pay $600 a year for 12 shows. You know, you can maybe with you right on about that. With UFC, you can because it's a different, it's a very different product. There's mainstream crossover. It's not as niche as wrestling, but they never broke that. And you can bet on it.

And you can bet on it. You never broke that. You never changed the model. They stayed even with the UFC app and they went to ESPN Plus. You still got to pay for it. so it's a big ask it's a really big ask and we're seeing that response right now by by people online you know what are you going to charge us twice for a show one week after another i think the reality is yeah they're going to have to uh you're going to have to bundle this

in some way or i i don't know if i don't personally i'd love to know your thought eric do you do you think they should do all in for free i would you would i would i would Let me rephrase it. I'm going to take that back. If there's a long-term plan, I think all-in for free is going to expose the product in a positive way to a much bigger audience that in the long-term will benefit you. In the short term, you're going to take a hit, which is what you could have made right in a pay-per-view. But giving it away for free, you're going to. to build a great relationship with your audience because you're over delivering.

You're establishing your product and your brand in the most positive way possible. There's all kinds of reasons why in the long term, I think that would be a great idea. In the short term, maybe not from a financial perspective. But it doesn't sound to me like anybody's thinking too short term right now. It's not like Tony's going to fire himself for not generating revenue. The reality is, too, A.W will never look as big league or will have not looked as big league to this point as it will with All In. We're going to be talking nearly 80,000 fans at Wembley Stadium there. And that's, John, I don't mean to cut you off, but you're so right about that.

That is, and that's kind of what I meant about this is just a great opportunity to showcase your without, and here's what I hope they don't do. Because really Tony and a lot of the talent has really backed off the trashing the competition, you know, burying WWE and throwing stones. This is an opportunity to put your best product out there and people will automatically compare it to WWE. And I'm pretty sure I know the people that are, you know, Mike Mansoury is a good friend of mine. He's sitting in the truck directing that show. There's a lot of talented people there, production. wise. I'm sure they're going to have a great looking show in front of 80,000 people. That will do more than all of the

Twitter chatter and media scrums that AEW has done in the last four years. That will do more to establish AEW as a viable brand and give it credibility with the audience. It's a viable brand. Tony's got all the money in the world. He's got a, it sounds like a long-term relationship with a cable partner those are all great those are great things but you've got to convince the audience that you're just as good as the competition without throwing stones you know what i mean without without getting in the mud i that's why john i think it's such a great opportunity if all lends free you know i'll go out of my way to watch it for sure this is a great conversation that we are having here on Strictly Business with Andrew Zarian, but I'm not going to lie to you.

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temper at all from the warner side on what kind of anticipation they have for all in um no actually and that's that that's a that's the strange part i i mean i was told that there's a possibility of a bundle between the two but that's as far i mean that's that's the depth of the conversation i've had about that show i guess i was curious do they recognize the enormity of the situation that comes with that show as a as er just alluded to from a perception standpoint what it can do for that brand and you don't seem to have a read on that. I haven't. I haven't nothing. It's weird, actually. It's one of the few things that I haven't heard anything about. But obviously, that has to be their perspective. You have a huge opportunity that one of your partners is putting on an 80,000 person event. It's not, it's not an

easy task. It's very difficult to pull off. Whether or not it's in the UK or not, you know, maybe it's a little bit easier over there because it's the first time they're going there. But to fill an entire stadium up with that amount of that amount of people is super impressive. I mean, you can't even think about it. But everybody knows it's very important. It has to look good. It can't just look like it's a whole bunch of people in a building. You have to shoot it right.

The creative behind it has to be good. The marketing behind it has to be good. The way you're shooting it has to be perfect. It's going to be compared to WrestleMania for good and bad, right? it's it's always going to be compared to WrestleMania and if this is going to be their WrestleMania every year you have to hit this thing out with

a home run and unfortunately AW doesn't have you know 35 years of evolution to get to that point they have to do it tomorrow you know sometimes when you're second that that's that's the race that you're playing but I think

everybody realizes the importance of making this thing work now it's just a matter of okay well what are you going to do creatively to entice people to watch it when there's a pay-per-view to following week. That part is, I have no idea at this point. I mean, we've all heard the matches that they

may have or may not have, but I think this has to really be presented as like, this is the biggest thing we've ever done. This is huge. We're going to do it again next year, but this is the expectation. You can't just have nothing matches on this thing and just say, well, we got 80,000

people in the building anyway. Why put the effort in so this show has been very enlightening thus far very highbrow you've you've classed us up and you and very much appreciate it but i want to get down into the muck a little bit so in your conversations over a cocktail or over a steak at ruth chris and you're talking to an ad sales person from from universal NBC universal or perhaps Perhaps you're having dinner the next night with an ad salesperson from Warner Discovery who's out there selling wrestling. Do you ever hear them kind of get into the same conversations that wrestling fans get into online? Like to hear WWE ad salespeople for Peacock or for Universal start crapping all over AEW or vice versa?

So, no, not the people I talk to. You hang out with much classier people than I do, obviously. no he doesn't trust me no i don't i don't hang out with surprising people uh i i would say that i see the muck right like i i sometimes i i see a slack chat or i someone sends me a screenshot of something and it's interesting like i see it like on the mbc side sometimes i i rarely see it on the warner side because i i don't get those sent to me uh john knows about my my infamous tv 14 story from last year that that that's that drove me into a psychotic rage when it happened.

You should share that story for Eric. So I fractured my hip last summer. I fell on my ass and I fractured my hip. It was freak accident. And I was working from home for like eight weeks. And I'm sitting down. I'm tanning. I'm having a cocktail at 12 in the afternoon.

And I get a call from somebody on the NBC Universal side. He goes, I'm going to send you something, but it's a done deal. It's a done deal. it's happening. And I look and it's a conversation between people within NBC saying on July, whatever, 17th or 20 something, WW Raw will be going TV 14. And assets are made. It's done. It's a done deal. Everybody and they got very excited. And I'm reading the conversation. And I'm like, should I post it? And I was like, you know what? It's a done deal. This is internal. This is is this is happening i put it out and i put the date which i never would have if it was any

other scenario i would have never put a date i put the date 45 minutes later that tweet went it got like 80 000 light it was insane it was something out of control 45 minutes later ex nay on the tv 14 it's not happening it's not happening uh they're freaking out on how this leaked and why people are talking about what's going to happen essentially what happened there was conversations to go to TV 14 and it had to do less with blood and cursing it had to do with the ability to maybe say something every now and then or maybe not

bleep out the crowd every time there's a whatever chant happening and I guess the people had USA jumped the gun and they sent graphics to you know uh Hulu for for the next day on raw Hulu became all TV 14 and the pay-per-view became TV 14

And this went on for months of just people asking me what happened. And the answer is they jumped the gun. So somebody at WWE, I had a drink with. And they're like, you know what? You were not wrong. Just USA, for whatever reason, thought that we were going to go through with it. And it was never finalized on our end. And they decided that they were going to do it.

It was just a breakdown of communication. It ruined my whole summer, that whole stupid TV 14 thing. Yeah, because you could have been. recognized as a real newsbreaker with some very significant news and instead it's like oh man just another one of those guys well then yeah and then you get the messages you're a liar you know you're this you're that you know you nothing you say is true i'm like we're all allowed to get something wrong well and it's not that you got something wrong i mean this was information you got directly from the cow's mouth right like USA provided you with these at the assets yeah it just i

friend of ours John I was having dinner with him and he's like oh no we were all laughing at you we thought it was hysterical that you got this wrong because you got it right and I'm like you know what that's funny you know our mutual friend on the WWE side a mutual friend of ours over there

but luckily for me you know this isn't my main job so I didn't I didn't lose subscribers or anything like that I heard you reported that Nitro was going to four hours at one point two not just going five hours yeah I would imagine just because I've been on the other side of situations like that, I could see, I know how that stuff happens. The right hand isn't necessarily talking to the left hand yet.

And I can see a bunch of people on the NBCU side making this decision internally, knowing that they're going to have to pick up the phone and talk to Vince, haven't really figured out how they're going to do that yet. If WWE wasn't on board, nobody really wanted to have to make that phone call. I can assure you that. And then it all leaks out before they even have a conversation with events. Oh, that's a horrible situation. I could get it.

I normally, I'm so careful with that stuff. I really am. And I talk to John about it. I go crazy. Like, I'll sit on stuff. And because I don't, I don't like to do spoilers. I don't want to ruin endings and surprises. You know, like you allude.

You do a podcast. You've got to be entertaining a little bit. But I hate doing that stuff. Sometimes it happens. Sometimes it's the right moment. but I hate being wrong. And luckily for me, I, I, I, that's, that's a positive because I double check and I triple check and I, and I, and I make sure I'm not, you know, speaking out of my ass when

it comes to this stuff. It just, it's interesting how the, the, the, the, the gang up begins when that happens, you know? I, I, what do you think the appetite is for additional non-ring, not wrestling, but additional content like the reality show? Was the appetite still good for it, do you think? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, big, actually. I know that they're working on a couple projects that are on.

I know one that is not on TNT or TBS that they're working on right now. A conversation I had about six months ago was, well, how, you know, one of the ideas that they have is integrating AEW talent across all their networks. You know, maybe there's some true TV integration that they could do or a food network. I always said, you know, like Renee Piquette and RJ are. R.J. City should do a cooking show, right? Like, they just have chemistry. Just, just, it's funny to me, you know, and, and they kind of see it too, not necessarily they're going to do a cooking show, but to, to integrate that amongst, you know, your, your other channels, it's a positive if you're able to get some viewership from it. You know, it's niche programming. People follow. I don't know

what the ratings on True TV are. I know impractical jokers does good, but if you could add another show that's maybe more non, non- wrestling base, maybe scripted, non-scripted, what does that mean to you? Can you get 300,000 people that watch or 400,000 on a second tier channel? You know, I think these are, these are all conversations that they're having. I don't think they figured it out yet. I want to piggyback off that. You just talked about integrating different stars from your conversations. Does Warner Brothers Discovery have anyone that they have an eye on on the AEW television shows that they see as someone who can be a face of the brand type of thing? Because Eric, you can add on.

after he answers, but I'm sure when you came in in 2019, there had to have been some conversations from the networks is, we want this person featured especially. We want this person featured especially. Have you seen that, Andrew, from the Warner Brothers Discovery end? I haven't. I know that they were very high on Cody to do everything, you know. I think they saw the benefit of having him and how well-rounded he is as a, you know, as an entertainer in general. But I haven't heard anything specific beyond that, beyond the Cody stuff. Did you find that a lot in your short stint there in 2019? Well, I saw, you know, because I showed up in July of 19.

When did we do the draft? That was like, that was the Fox premiere, I think it was a draft episode. So during that period of, and again, that was at the very beginning stages of the Fox USA relationship, meaning, you know, Fox had their show and USA had theirs. And of course, there was a lot of. not with me directly. I didn't take those calls, but with Kevin Donne and probably Vince himself throughout the months leading up to that big draft and the draft split between the two networks essentially. There was a lot of people that had a lot of opinions and they were voicing them to

the appropriate people. Like I said, I didn't handle them, but networking sex to Kevin Dunn or Vince McMahon did. I just find that very interesting because I always wonder, Matt Hardy and I were talking about this on our podcast the other day, is there someone right now on the AW roster that can become the person, the face of the network, the person who crosses over? And I was curious if they had identified anyone internally amongst Warner Brothers discovery on that front. But of the current crop, Andrew, you haven't heard any names floated around for that? Nothing, nothing really. I know that, you know, a while ago, they were very impressed by Jade. So is, so is WWE. you know so is anybody that looks at her she's very impressive when you look at her

uh i haven't heard anybody specifically um that that they would want to that they're saying okay this person has to be the face or you you should put more emphasis on this person uh and and that's part of you know that's a w's growing pains also to figure that out because they're three years in and you know i love the wrestling you know i'm a wrestling fan i could sit there and watch a brian danielsen match for 45 minutes and be content with it but i know that that's not what how most people consume tv you know it's it's you got you got a couple seconds to grab my attention how are you going to do that i don't know if a grappling match is going to do that especially you know with with the way the media is going to short term you know short uh well i forgot

the term that was used by me what what did you say john short form content short form content yeah uh so i i i think they need to figure out the next step because we've seen how WWE has prospered over the last, you know, year or so with the bloodline storyline and now with the judgment day. And it's all story. I was in the garden two weeks ago at that garden show. 40 minutes of the opening segment was talking. No wrestling. There was no match. And the live crowd at the garden ate it up. They were sitting there watching it like it was theater. They weren't, they weren't bored. And this is the garden. You know, the garden is a rough crowd. They weren't board they were watching with their with their mouths open wanting to know what happens next that's lightning

in a bottle you don't get to do that too often and i think you know w right now they have something really hot i think a ewe needs that story also and when they figured it out maybe then they create that that top network guy that's you know front and center but if you sit back and look at it you know and again from a network execs point of view if you had to pick one person in a eW right now that you could potentially say you know this this individual could we're going to do a game show on TBS on Saturdays, whatever, whatever new project is coming down the pipe. What if we cast this talent from AEW into that role or a food show type of it? But there's, it takes somebody who can't, who has that talent just because you were a great

performer in the ring, doesn't necessarily mean that you could host a game show or a talk show or some other version of a live action event. It takes some diversity in talent, some layers. that's the hard part you know if i had to sit back right now and pick one person you know and my life depended upon it it would be mjf because i think mjf can could play a comedic character if he wanted to i think he could he could easily host a show um you know i mean there's i could see mjf because he has so much talent i could see him plugging into a lot of different things i i can't say the same for anybody else on that a e w roster now it I don't know the roster as well, but the way I see it, MJF would be a great candidate for that.

Oh, 100%. I mean, he has such crossover appeal. You know, he's a very unique act. You don't get to see. You don't, there aren't too many of him right now. It just, I, I just personally haven't heard it, you know, nobody said to me like, oh, we want MJF to do a variety hour for 40, 30 minutes. I'm curious if this baby faceish run that he's doing right now leverages him into some opportunity. these because he really is showing what he's capable of doing right now. He loves his

uncle Eric, as he says, all the time. Eric, he loves his uncle Eric. Last thing I've got for you, Andrew, I want to hit on NBC University here for a quick second because I know you said you have an existing relationship there. What is your read on where they stand ahead of these WWE TV

rights? Do you see it continuing as business as usual? Do you see maybe NXT getting out of that agreement? Anything that you can add on that front? Um, I've had, it's funny because, uh, the conversation kind of slowed down. I haven't heard anything other than, uh, the NXC ratings they, they're, they're very happy with. And, you know, the goal was to be in the 600s for that show that I was always told that. Like, if they're able to get like in the mid sixes out of the key, obviously they want, they want to hire demo numbers, right? But as far as an overall P2 viewership, to be in the 600, they were, they were happy with it. But now they're doing great. Their demos that they're 18. to, I think they just put out a thing. They were gloating about a, what, 18 to 25 or 25 to something. They had a tremendous high demo.

That has been, NXT's growth has been great, but also seeing how Raw has recovered. You know, this is 18 months ago, people were talking about how AW may beat Raw overall, for the overall P2 number. And now it's really, I mean, there are a million viewers off now for Monday Night Raw between the two brands. So it's not that AEW is doing. and so poorly, it's that AW, you know, they leveled out and WWs in a boom period. So I think if there was any indicator on should we, you know, sign for another five years with

this astronomical whatever deal, I don't think WW could ask for a better positioning than they have right now. And also, you know, they're not to catch you out, but I just read this. It was Brandon Thurston, who was on with us last week, actually. I saw some of his reporting in a graph that showed that both WW, both Monday Night Raw and Smackdown are considerably above last year's performance and there's not a lot of television that can say that right now. No, because television viewership is dropping, you know,

and, you know, even, but one thing that I'm seeing, which is interesting, that when they discuss television rain, and Eric, you have such insight on this too. Have you noticed that the conversation is shifting away from live viewership and it's now going to you know like DVR plus three matters more DVR plus seven is mattering more

when it comes to like Game of Thrones for HBO you know they're right of Blood of the Dragon what was it what's the new one called John House of the Dragon there you go Blood of the Dragon I watched the whole series I should know the number that they were talking like 18 million people

watch this episode not not live not DVR plus three you're talking over a week. And those numbers mean a lot. So I think we're starting to see a little bit of a shift. I think they're calculating viewership for linear TV a little bit differently and

taking that digital model because it looks a whole lot better. And AW&W and Warner actually that put out that press releases past week about blood and guts. That's a two and a half million people. Lotsed it. And everyone was like, everyone was like, what? But I think it's when you're factoring in the DVR and all those

other ways of consuming it. That's what they're right. Yeah, I'm throwing a flag on that one. I'm not going to call, I'm not going to call bullshit yet, but I'm reaching, I'm pulling out my, my, my, my yellow flag, but I'm reaching for my bullshit flag on that one. I just don't believe that the plus three numbers and the DVR numbers all add up to a million. I think a lot of those press releases are just, it's a sales effort. They, they're, they're working off the perception is the reality world in the world of advertising because I think what they're trying to do is convince advertisers that there was 2.5 million people.

I'd love to see the backup for that. That's something I'd love to talk to Brandon Thurston about or discuss with him because I'm, I ain't buying that bullshit. Well, I mean, listen, I did add sales for a long time. I would love to, I would love to show two and a half million to you instead of $950,000 if I can, you know. Yeah. Yeah.

yeah if you can yeah it's easy to do in a press release because nobody's asking for backup do you have anything else you'd like to throw at uh andrew here eric no i'm good man this is a fascinating conversation now i know andrew i'm going to see you tomorrow in queens right yeah you're in uh you're in bayside you're in my home hometown in queens uh i'm gonna stop by you're at the wrestling universe which uh that store i i've in my in my from the age of 14 to now, I've been there a billion times. I've going by my kids stuff all the time. But the guys owned it for like 20-something years. A lot of great wrestlers. I've gotten to yell that by Taz twice there. I've gotten to you. I mean, the Dudleys have yelled at me there. So like, you know,

I was a 14-year-old kid going to these autograph signing. So I'm going to, I'm going to stop by with, you know, and say hello tomorrow. Can you yell at him please, Eric, just to keep that going? Yeah, yeah, Eric, he needs to yell at me. I said, can you please yell at him tomorrow just to keep that going. Oh, yeah. I'll cut a hell of a promo. I'll come by and I'll say hello. I'll give Jack the, the owner a call and say, hey, listen, Eric, okay, this. I'm just going to come say hello. I just did a show with him, all right? No, but you should bring your book. That's your wife.

I will bring my book. I'd love to sign that for you. Yeah. Love it. Andrew, where can people find you? You can find me at Matman. You can find me on Twitter at Andrew Zarian, Mattman podcast on Twitter. We've been doing it for 12 years. It's a lot of fun. I do we're live pal with Garrick and Zob. Dallas. Also, this has been a fun ride, man. I absolutely love talking wrestling. And if I could give some sort of positive insight without yelling and screaming and talking about how everything sucks,

then I added something to this. You know, you definitely class to join up, man. I appreciate it very much. Thanks, Eric. I appreciate it. Thanks, John. Thank you, Andrew, for joining us. If you want to join us here on our strictly business team, head on over to advertise witheric.com and make sure that you get your product or your business out in front of thousands and thousands of listeners every single week can find strictly business at 83 weeks.com and of course at ad free shows.com. We've got you hooked up there. It's always great content coming to you from Eric Bischoff, Conrad Thompson and myself. This has been Strictly Business. We will see you next time.