83 Weeks with Eric Bischoff - Wise Choices: Let's Make A Deal!

Episode Date: September 18, 2024

On this edition of Wise Choices, Eric Bischoff and Derek Sabato breakdown the recent information dropping down of AEW's new WBD television deal. BLUECHEW - Try BlueChew FREE when you use our promo code WRESTLEBIZ at checkout--just pay $5 shipping. That’s https://bluechew.com/, promo code WRESTLEBIZ to receive your first month FREE. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Good evening. This is not Conrad Thompson. My name is Derek Sabato, and I'm here with the man who's negotiated more television deals than anyone else in the professional wrestling space. The legend, the Hall of Famer, Eric Bischoff. Eric, how are you tonight? I am good, man. I'm really good.

Derek, it's good to have you on here. this is our maiden voyage. We're jumping on this ship and going to go for a ride tonight and see where we end up. So I'm excited and I appreciate you being here. Conrad, I couldn't make it. And you were the designated hitter since we're into the interesting part of the baseball season.

I am happy to be part of Wise Choices, a special TV episode. As a matter of fact, we're going head to head right now with the launch of NXT on CW. And that is quite the transition into why we are actually here All Elite Wrestling, according to

all reports that are now coming out from official media, have come to a close agreement with WBD about an expansion on media rights that from all things encompassing sounds like it will turn the company profitable. Fightful earlier

today, shared with the internet a lot of details that it seems like they've kept close to the vest, but according to John Norand of Puck Report, AEW's new media deal with Warner Brothers Discovery, looks like it will be a four-year deal, three years guaranteed with a one-year option, and that $170 million per year is apparently in the ballpark. Eric, when you hear that from a legitimate media source, how close to actually

happening do you think we are? Do you think we're at the 20, the 10, the 5? Do you think they're right at the goal line at this point. And I know I asked you when we were getting ready to go live, but who reported that again? John. John Arand of Puck reports. He used to be for the sports business journal now on his own. Okay. So, and I want to point that out because this isn't a wrestling media person, a wrestling dirt sheet writer reporting it or a Reddit site comment. This is a legitimate media source. And there was enough detail in what was posted that leads me to believe if it's not 100% accurate. It's pretty close. So I would take it at face value, to be honest with you. What did I think of it? I think it's, first of all, it's nothing but good news. Let's,

let's be really clear. Despite what a lot of people have said, particularly in social media, and some of the dirt sheets and read out comments that I've seen where I've been, you know, according to them, been forecasting, you know, demise for AEW and that they would never get a new deal and all that, which is absolutely false going back probably a year ago. I predicted, in all likelihood, AEW would get a new deal. I did a couple times during that business, probably longer a year and a half, when Raw was, nobody knew for sure where Raw was going to end up before Netflix, there was a point in time when Warner Brothers was interested in acquiring those rights.

And there were meetings, and that's been all documented. It's not news. It's not a secret. And I did say at that point that if indeed WBD were to end up with either Raw or Smackdown, it would be unlikely, very unlikely, that AEW would exist on WB. But as that didn't happen, and we all know where Raw is and Smackdown ended up, I'm not surprised. I guess I do kind of immediately bristle a little bit when, as you did, people suggest that, oh, this deal is going to make them profitable.

How do we know that? Has anybody looked at AEW expenses? Not you necessarily, Derek, but anybody that's reporting, it's just about everybody does. it's kind of like just thrown in there as a comment, oh, the seal's going to make them profitable. Well, how does anybody know? Does anybody know what the talent budget is for AEW? I've never seen that.

Does anybody know how much it costs AEW to actually produce a show? I've never seen anybody talk about that. And those are, you know, that's called cost of goods. If you're making birdhouses and you sell a birdhouse for 10 bucks, but you've got $20 worth of material in the birdhouse, it doesn't matter if it's the highest-priced birdhouse in the farm and garden store, you're still losing money. So until we have a legitimate picture of the profit and loss

and expenses that are associated with producing a show, I'm not so quick to jump on a, oh, it's going to make them profitable bandwagon. I think that's just a lot of internet wrestling, community hyperbole that everybody seems to just accept without ever wondering or asking the question, but what about the expenses? Like, I'm estimating, it's just an estimate, I don't have any inside information, and I'm not suggesting that I'm right. I could be dead wrong. But based on my experience and based on what I do know and have heard anecdotally, I'd be shocked. I'd be Shocked, pleasantly shocked, but shocked if the AEW talent budget isn't close to or exceeds

$100 million a year. Well, how do you account for that? Because you can't produce $170 million a year worth of television without talent. That's a direct cost of goods. You have travel, cost of goods. You have arena rental, cost of goods. you've got a lot of expenses that go into producing a show. At $170 million a year, you're looking at five hours a week.

You're probably somewhere in the neighborhood of about $600,000 an episode. Now, granted, some of the episodes are going to be more expensive to produce than others, just given the production value that I've seen so far. But here's what I do know. I do know 10 years ago, or excuse me, over 20 years ago, when I was producing Nitro for WCW and Turner Broadcasting, the physical cost of production, excluding talent, didn't, I'm not accounting for talent,

just the physical cost of production, excluding airfare, excluding a lot of other things that go along with producing a show, just the physical cost of being there was in excess of $275,000 an episode. That's 20 years ago. So that number is probably pretty close to $4, $450 today. And that's without talent. That's without travel.

That's without insurance. That's without a lot of other things. So $600 and some odd thousand dollars in episode sounds like a lot of money until you start loading expenses on top of it. I hope they're profitable. That would be great. Give them breathing room to perhaps figure out how to, to actually produce a show and figure out what the audience really wants

because based on current performance and year over year, just black and white numbers, got a wrestle nomads. You don't have to believe me. They're down a shit ton in terms of audience, like 25, 38% in some cases, year over year. So, you know, it's good news because now they've got some time to figure things out. but it's not like all of a sudden the shows are going to get better because they've got a new TV deal.

So it'll be interesting to see what happens over the next year or two years. So to follow back up on that statement, I think one of the things that we've heard a lot about with AEW is that Tony Kahn has his hands in a lot of the aspects of that business and has been hesitant to hand off a lot of that. That being said, he's been going to France and talking with David Zasloff, WBD. He finished the negotiation period that was. exclusive with WBD, and sounds like from all reports again, is that they are actively shopping outside of WBD as well for additional content.

When you are that guy in that role, and you've done all of those aspects before in WCW, creative tends to fall by the wayside, does it not? It's one of the first casualties. And, you know, thinking back, and Derek, that's a really good point. You know, people often ask me, you know, if you could do it all over again, what would you differently or what's your one big regret well i've got so many freaking regrets i can't categorize them or even number them it sounds like a t-shirt by the way yeah but one of one of the most obvious things that really and i've talked about this a million times but it's it's true and it's

germane to what we're talking about today is when ted turner decided he wanted thunder and it fell on my lap and i had to produce it and by the way I didn't get a license fee. My job was you go figure out how to produce it out of your budget, Eric, not out of Turner Broadcasting's budget. There was no license fee. There wasn't even a thank you. It was go do that.

And oh, by the way, we want it to be as good as Nitro. And that is probably if there was one thing that I could point to that had the most negative impact on WCW during that period of time, it would be the addition of thunder. Because it stretches out your talent, you dilute your talent, or you overexpose your talent, and the creative horsepower and the focus just isn't there.

And I made a comment, I know I got a shit ton of response, old man screaming at the clouds bullshit. It's like, okay, great, they're going to go produce another show. they can't figure out how to produce one that doesn't lose audience. Why would you want to dump another one onto that? And who's going to,

where's the creative come from from that? I mean, I get it, you know, you want to make the money. You need, you know, you need the cash flow.

You want to get your profit up. You want to figure out a way to make a buck. I get it. But at what expense, even if it's not a financial expense that's hurting you, It is a intellectual horsepower cost of doing business that I think will, I mean, look, I try so hard not to be too negative or for the points I'm trying to make to sound negative, but dynamite is the shits.

And hey, if you like it, if you just like watching wrestling for the sake of watching wrestling and you don't really care about character development, you don't care about storylines, or you're willing to accept boy meets girl, Boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back as a storyline. Then good for you. I'm happy for you. You know, Tony Con and E.W. Can figure out a way to make money off of you, even better.

But the vast majority of the audience wants a show that is compelling, compelling characters, compelling story. Real story. Not boy meets girl stories. Dog crush the C-Spot Run. Oh, Spot C's Dick. Dick's hanging out with Jane. Dick and Jane take spot for a walk. That's a story.

And if that's enough for you as an AEW fan, then go with God. But the vast majority of the audience isn't buying it. And it's not just my opinion. It's numbers. And they're out there. Go look at wrestleomics. Go look at the trends.

Go look at where collision or rampant. or dynamite are this year versus last year. We're talking 25, 30, 38% declines in plus twos or entire audience or 18 to 49 is getting hit the worst. And as we've heard so many times, because everybody reads it in variety, 18 to 49 is the most coveted demo in the ad sales world. And it is. It is the demo.

It's one of the main things I was. always take away from listening to you discuss AEW is that you want the company to succeed. And it's never coming from a place of, I want the company to shut down, I want people to lose jobs, I want another company out of the space. When you hear that they're looking at a $170 million deal in talks with Fox supposedly about adding more content, the rumor in innuendo is that they will be adding more content to True TV, another WBD network, having the deal in place, providing sense of security to Tony Kahn. You talked just a couple weeks ago about listening to the podcast with Jim Pepperman. Once that deal was checked, across the finish line, boom, you're already

in worry for your next TV negotiation. Because if it's a three-year deal with a one-year option, at some point, that talk is going to begin again. So just like last time in negotiating window, they had up until a certain point, they're not going to be that far from it with a three-year. year deal, but you have to get your audience back. So taking that monkey off your shoulders, so to speak, all right, now we have the deal. It doesn't sound like it's all the way done, and it does sound like there was a component to max so far for pay-per-view that may actually still be out there to be negotiated. We're not, even if the TV deal is signed and it's $170 million, we're still not all the way finished with this type of talk about what's next for AEW. And the mental drain that

that can weigh on Tony gone. It's not minor, is it? No, it's, you know, look, any business is tough, right? It's competitive and especially the television industry. It is super competitive. I have a lot of friends that are still at very high levels, executives at networks and movie studios. And it is a grind. It is not nearly as much fun as it was 10, 15, 20 years ago because the margins have come down

so much. It's one of the reasons Jason Hervey and I decided to get out of the television business and no longer be independent producers because there was so much vertical integration with production companies. Small companies like ours were getting gobbled up by bigger companies and they were getting gobbled up by the Viacombs of the world. And as all of these networks have been gobbling up independent production, guess what they do? That now they have 100% control over the cost of goods, their programming costs, and they start squeezing those margins to the point where if you remain an independent producer and you're outside of the vertical integration and you're not a part of a Viacom or you're not a part of Universal or you're not a part

of NBC would be universal. But you know what I mean? If you're not a part of a big network solution, then you're fighting for nickels and dimes where, you know, 20 years ago you were fighting for hundreds of thousands of dollars so it's a tough business it really is it used to be fun it used to be kind of glamorous and exciting and creative but it's it's like any other business now it's a grind this episode is brought to you by blue chew let's talk about sex i mean conrad's favorite subject but since conrad's not here let's talk about it anyway guys you remember the days when you were always ready to go, like if the wind changed direction or the temperature varied by two or three degrees, or, you know, if it was daytime or nighttime, whatever, you were ready to go.

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And we thank Blue Chew for their ongoing support of everything we do. 100%. First off, I want to say thank you to all the 83-weekers, members that have joined us on this live wise choices. Maddie, I'm not going to say the rest of your name, but Maddie, what's up? Josh, Coach Rosie, everyone, member, super chats. Go to the front of the line. If you're an 83-weeks member, your question's going to get up on the screen, and we're going to take the first one now from Josh Henney.

ask EZs the hashtag, Eric, does this deal look like AEW will need to produce more content, keep the shows as it is? Well, we were just discussing that, Josh. It looks like there's going to be more content. And what's interesting is, you know, when AEW first started, Dynamite first started, and I was fully supportive, very optimistic for it. I was looking for something new and exciting, something different than WWE. And shortly after WWE got out, or excuse me, AWD got off the ground,

I just started hearing rumor and innuendo that there was going to be an additional show. And this is five years ago now, five and a half years ago. And I was talking to Conrad and I said, I think that's a mistake until Tony Kahn gets his creative infrastructure, until you really get a handle on creative and talent management. management and get your roster in place, the last thing you want to do is put creative pressure on a new company any more than necessary. And again, this is redundant, but I think it's a big mistake for a company that still hasn't figured out how to produce their A show to start spreading themselves thin and

producing a D show or an E show. It's absolutely ridiculous to me. They don't have the intellectual or creative horsepower. to pull it off or to pull it off well. They'll get it done. They'll shit shows out the door. They'll land on TV, but they're going to continue until they do something different than what they've been doing

for the last five years. If next year looks anything like this year and they lose another 30%, if 2025 versus 2024, it looks like 24 versus 23, what the fuck? I'll be able to get more people watching me cook burgers on my rec tech, then they'll be able to get to watch a main event on Wednesday night. 83 meets coming to 83 weeks.com soon as it is too.

It is. I get a big surprise for you. 83 meets is going to be more fun than you think it is. I've been waiting. I'm getting my studio remodeled and getting some new lights in here because it's like I'm in a freaking tree house and I'm waiting to get electricians out here to get some lights in. And then I got a crew coming in. They're going to totally reconfigure my studio.

When they do, I'm going to launch 83 meets. is a part of the whole 83 weeks initiative here on YouTube. And we're going to have some fun. You're going to learn some shit, too. If you guys think Eric's job is only to point out everything that's wrong with AEW and Tony Khan, I promise you, you haven't seen anything until Eric discusses food. There is no one out there that's going to roast your terrible food choices, awful meals like Eric. You know, it's funny, Derek, because I was thinking, you know, I like to talk.

about stuff other than wrestling, right? But the things I like to talk about that I'm really passionate about, well, can't talk about politics because if you think the wrestling internet community is a shit show, political commentary and political stuff on social media is the thousand times worse. So I can't really do that. What else am I passionate about? Nobody wants to hear about my dog every day. Oh, I got it. I can talk about nutrition and food because I love to eat. And let's face it, I'm old as fuck. And if I want to be around for a while, I want to be like one of the oldest legends out on the circuit. If I'm going to do that, I've got to keep myself healthy. So I've been spending a lot of time learning shit.

What are redefining is old as fuck? I say it jokingly. I actually feel better today physically. I feel better today that I did when I was in my 40s. I think metabolically, I'm healthier now than I was when I was in my 30s. you know, I'm not as fast. I'm not as strong as I was back then, but I'm not trying to be either. I don't work at that. But I feel better.

So to me, I have fun with my age because I like, I know people like to, you know, make fun of it. And so I don't know. I think old is when you quit trying new shit. I think old is when you give up on certain things.

I think old is when you just go, you know, I'm just going to sit around and watch TV and, you know, coast for a while. That's old to me. And I've seen too many people. that I know that, you know, they work their asses off until they're 65 years old.

They're retired. They get a lot of money. They think they're going to go off and play golf five days a week, travel to the world, and their bored is fuck within about three months. And then they die. So, yeah, no, I'm going to work forever. And I got to say healthy to do that. And nutrition, nutrition is the key. So we're going to be talking a lot about that. Before we turn this into a, how do we continue to drink and eat meat all at the same time and be healthy. Coach Rosie has a question for us. It's been rumored that True TV is going to get a show like I mentioned earlier, but they say it's to increase sports viewership for that channel. Do you think that is a possibility? He doesn't. Now, before we get fully into answering that question,

I did see a report the other day that True TV right now was averaging somewhere in the 100,000 viewers during prime time. Oh my God. So as bad as the night, numbers have been trickling down for AEW dynamite collision in the 300s, that's still a step up than what is going on on the likes of true TV. Now, the return on investment of what you're going to spend for that content compared to possibly three times what your highest show is, is that something that a TV network looks at and goes, well, if we spend X and we get X, does it make sense in the long run? So we just watch Fox walk away from WWE after a five-year deal and go, it wasn't worth the money, to a channel like True TV and the expansion of WBD

trying to get more viewership to all their properties, A.W has to be somewhat appetizing for them to even consider putting more content on their channels, right? Yeah, there's two things you've got to think about, though. And this is, I'm by no means an expert when it comes to this. We're talking about network executive level programming decisions. And there's a lot of strategy that goes into that. It's just not as easy as, oh, let's put this show on because it gets this rating over here and we'll move it over here and then we'll get that rating. No, it doesn't work that way.

You know, True TV has been a dying television channel for quite some time. I've produced shows. Jason and I produced shows for True TV, quite a few of them, actually. And they've always struggled to have an identity. You know, what is True TV? What does it represent? Is it a comedy channel? Is it a reality channel?

Is it because it was? for a long time. All of their shows were reality shows, non-scripted. Well, that didn't work too well because non-scripted just got tiresome and people got bored with it. And they've tried different things to give that channel an identity and a brand awareness so that it would draw attention. With that kind of viewership in prime time, I mean, I'd rather produce a YouTube show

than deal with a network. and for a hundred, you know, a network that only gets 100,000 viewers in prime time, to think that adding AEW and automatically you're going to get the six or 700,000 people that do watch Dynamite, to hope that you're going to get any significant portion of them to also watch True TV, I think is a stretch. If I was on the executive committee at True TV and this, opportunity was on the table, just in terms of, is it going to increase viewership for the network? Talking about AEW coming to true?

I wouldn't bet on that. It's a big bet. It's a big bet. Now, this is the part where it gets a little tricky. And this is what none of us know. Nobody knows it. What's the strategy? What's the five-year business plan for WBD and True TV?

What is the business plan? Now, if the business plan is, okay, we know we're going to try to build this network up over the next five years. We need content that we can depend on, even if we're going to lose money for the first two or three. As long as we know we're bringing eyeballs to the network and we can perhaps promote other programming to that, demo that would be consistent with that demo's appetite that's a that's a network building strategy that's a programming strategy and sometimes you lose money for a year or two years um in order to build a network and build that primetime audience up to where it was when i was doing business with them which is probably closer to five or six hundred thousand in prime time we would

deliver a show to true tv and if it only got three or four hundred thousand viewers we knew we weren't to come back next year. Things have obviously changed a lot. So unless, I guess this is a long-winded way, Derek, of saying if you don't understand and have visibility into the long-term programming strategy of any network, it's hard to really know what the executives are thinking. There's just too much information that nobody knows unless you're an executive. Sure. One of the biggest things, especially with True TV, is they've recently removed impractical jokers and transferred that over to TBS.

So that was their biggest show, which drops their prime time average down again into the 100,000s. But for them, if they make the transition in the sports, AW is a whole lot cheaper than getting an NBA contract, a NCAA football contract, or even a double NCA football contract, or even a double NCA, oh, I can't talk today, NCAA basketball conference tournament championship deal. If you're already doing negotiation, and you've talked before about how Time Warner love to spread out the money in certain aspects, this is a way for them maybe to offset and give themselves

a possible perspective on a return-on investment. Spread the money out. It looks a whole lot better, am I right? could be you could be i mean that is a strategy and it does make sense on on the surface it could make sense that's a better way to say it it could make sense now shout out to josh henny we answered your question earlier and he gifted it 5 83 weeks with eric bishop oh josh thank you brother we appreciate you man much appreciate it demons rose got a super chat and we love our super chats remember they go to the front of the line so get them in there get them hot get them heavy demons row row is

big fan, Eric, but we're talking about WWE, and the writing has been so bad lately. What do you think has happened? SummerSlan was so good, then it got so boring. Have you kept up on the recent W&E product? I haven't. I haven't. I have been traveling so much over the summer. Between me being, me traveling and friends and family dropping in, it's been a really busy

summer, and watching wrestling is not one of the bigger priorities in my household. So I'm going to be watching tonight on DVR because I DVRed some stuff because my wife's out. She's in a meeting tonight. So I get this, have the television to myself. But I haven't been watching WWE for probably. It's probably been three weeks since I dropped in on an episode. So it's hard for me to comment. The transition of Smackdown from Fox to USA has been a big launching point for them.

Robin Rain seems to be coming back on TV. You have expressed herself vehemently. you think it is too soon. I don't disagree with you so far, but the drop-off in rating from Fox to USA was pretty obvious. When you look at making Roman return, but still losing 500,000 viewers,

going from network to cable, it held its own to be able to lose that type of viewers and bring Roman back, wouldn't you say? No, absolutely. You know, it's unfair to compete. pair network ratings to cable ratings. It just is. One of the things I do like is now that, you know, this is as close to head-to-head competition as we've had, really, for any extended period of time between AEW and WWE. Now you've got two shows, both of them on cable,

both of them on Friday night. Yes, they're different than not head-to-head, but that's even better, right? And now we're going to be able to kind of, you know, since Tony likes to position himself as a Challenger brand, and we're going to be able to see on a more equal level playing field, how does AEW do on Friday nights on a major cable network? How does SmackDown do on Friday nights on a major cable network? I don't know what the household penetration is for each of the networks, but I bet you they're within a couple thousand of each other. USA is probably a little bigger, but not by much. So it'll be really interesting to see how it plays out. But I'll be honest with you, when I saw the rating on Friday night, I was surprised. I was actually

surprised it did as well as it did. I was expecting a bigger drop. If Eric Bischoff was in this, let's say, Ward, would you be buying time in local markets to advertise your brand as a challenger brand on WWE television? No, because the contrast between and quality between the two shows is so stark I wouldn't want to encourage anybody to make that comparison and again I'm going to go back to what I started out saying this is where you know my passion sounds like venom it's just the way I am folks can't help it I talk to my friends and family the same way as much as I love them sometimes I'm very hard Not that I'm hard on them.

It's just the way I say things. It just comes off that way. But this is exactly why I say don't continue to expand and dilute yourself from a creative resource position or intellectually or talent-wise or financially until you get your feet underneath you. Get your product right and then do it. But right now, do I want somebody to go, oh, I want to check out SmackDown and compare. it to collision or rampage or dynamite or whatever, fuck no. I think that's probably one of the reasons why they're losing so much audience over the last couple of years is because people have tried them.

People like me in the very beginning, people like the six or eight writers that were with me in the W.W.E. Writers' room in Stanford, Connecticut, and watched the debut, the premiere episode of Dynamite. We're all cheering them on, have lost faith in the product because if you compare the two, there is no comparison. it you know i use this analogy sometimes you know it's like if i decided i'm going to open a hot dog stand those mobile hot dog carts you see in new york some italian sausages maybe some poli sausages a little bit of brought worse you know i have a variety of sausages there on my little cart and i put it on the same street corner as ruth chris steakhouse and then try to convince

everybody i'm a challenger brand to ruth chris come over and try my hot dog and compare them to what you're going to get in Ruth Chris. Huh? No, I'm not going to do that. I just think it's too soon. The product is not developed yet. The brand has yet to be developed. Until they stop losing audience, I wouldn't try to make any comparisons at all to WWE.

If I was Tony Gunn right now, I would be putting WWE over and thanking them for being the catalyst for so much growth in the wrestling space. literally, I'd be putting them over and endearing myself to their fans as opposed to challenging them to try my product and perhaps hope that you'll find it a better product. They're just not ready for that yet. Speaking of that, Dave, you could throw up that graphic. The explosion of media rights as documented from WrestleMania Comics, when you look at

Raw and Smackdown Media Rights going as far back as 2000. nine. They've almost doubled the first contract, then almost four times that next contract, and then 1.3x on this contract. You see that growth that you're referencing with

the explosion of media rights fees just in the United States and that's what we're referencing. Without them leading that way and being as successful as they've been, there's no way AEW touches the reported $170 million deal that is

on the table from WBD if we believe all the news that's out there, correct? Oh, I 100% agree. WWE is responsible for changing the television landscape for professional wrestling without question. Keep, I mean, all the years I produced that show, I didn't even get a license fee. We were profitable without a license fee. We were profitable paying for our own show out of our own budget and getting nothing from the network.

and to be in the position that WWE is, to be in a position at AEW is it, forget about WWE. For Turner Broadcasting to be paying $170 million a year for wrestling is a massive accomplishment, largely possible because of WWE. Because honestly, the show is, it's not justifiable other than the perception to a degree and the reality that wrestling is a hot property. I can't, for the life of me, figure out what the strategy might be for WBD and AEW simply because they're bleeding audience as badly as they are.

They're hemorrhaging audience from a television perspective. They're hemorrhaging audience. And there's nothing to indicate that that's going to turn around. Now, maybe there is something that I don't know about, but we don't know about that Tony has up his sleeve, it's going to turn things around, but until and unless there is. One of the other things that we don't know about this contract, are there any thresholds in it?

It's a three-year deal if AEW reaches certain thresholds. I bring that up because I had that in a lot of the contracts that Jason and I, when we sold shows to networks. We had thresholds. Yes, you get a two-year deal. We'll buy two seasons if, or we'll buy an additional season if. So a lot of times there's thresholds that you have to meet within that, you know, three-year window that if you don't meet, your three-year contract is really only an 18-month contract. Now, I'm not suggesting that there is those thresholds, but there usually are, and there may be in this, but we don't know that either.

Speaking of thresholds and expansion of product and viewership, I think from a personal opinion, I think it's fair to say that they outperformed their first original deal where, all WBD was covering was production, starting off in the 900,000 a week viewerships. And then as the expansion of that deal came, and then the money came, and then more money came. This deal is a barometer of the trust that WBD has had in its relationship with AEW. And they wouldn't be floating these numbers out there if they were unsatisfied with the product. When you talk about markers and hitting those markers, they've had to have hit some type of internal marker for WBD to continue to increase the rates, give them more time, more product, produce reality shows that go along with that. So it's not all negative when it comes to that.

They may have already hit some of those markers and some of those barometers, which has gotten in at this point. Oh, clearly they did, or they wouldn't be getting a renewal. Right. Clearly, WBD sees something in, and that's, again, the mystery of it to me. I'm not saying it's a bad decision. I'm not criticizing anybody for the decision because I don't know. on what their strategies are. So maybe there are certain thresholds with particular to a strategy that that exists in the network. Again, losing the NBA, that's a big deal.

So they're probably trying to reconfigure. Well, they are obviously trying to reconfigure the networks and figure out how they're going to make them work. And look, the one thing about AEW or any wrestling promotion on a major network, the wrestling audience is loyal. They're going to show up. they're predictable, whereas a lot of other content is not. You know, you take it, you know, when, again,

I'm going to go back to when Jason and I were producing shows together for BHE. The budgets for most of the shows that we produced were somewhere, I would say, average probably around $450,000 an hour, some were up to $750,000, somewhere into $3.50. somewhere in a 350 range, very, very few below that. The thresholds you would have to meet to get a season two or season three were pretty, pretty stiff. But again, with wrestling, because you could depend on that audience, because with reality television, you know, we would create a show.

We could be sitting in a restaurant having a sandwich and come up with an idea. And then we go back to the office and you flesh it out on paper. And then you create a presentation, a paper presentation. And then you go through all this stuff and all these steps to finally get a show sold. Even if every executive in the company signed off on it was excited about it, there was a 50-50 chance it wouldn't work. I mean, it's risky. Producing new shows is very risky.

It's one of the reasons why the business is in it. isn't as much fun anymore because there's very little tolerance for lack of performance. They just can't afford it. So I think the advantage that AEW has in a long-winded way, I'll try to keep it short, it's a wrestling show. And years ago, being a wrestling show was like, you're a wrestling show. But the one thing about the wrestling audience is they're predictable and they're dependable, and they will find you.

And they will keep coming back if you give them a reason to. Speaking of Keep coming back and giving you a reason to, Josh has dropped another 10 memberships here for 83 weeks. Josh is like the Santa Claus of 83 weeks. Just gift and membership, let them right. And we're not going to forget about JR giving out his one membership. JR, thank you for the support. Josh, keep coming and get everybody involved here at 83 weeks.com. And Barat's got a great super chat. He dropped in there for. for us, Eric, is there a difference in producing wrestling for an entertainment channel like TVS to a sports station? And in India, it does better when pair with sport.

And I think that's a relevant way to look at things. WWCategorizes themselves really is entertainment now in regards to the rating aspect. But AWs always categorize themselves as sport. What's the difference between the two to either ad executives or to someone on the inside of the television business? There's such a massive difference. one of the things that used to, you know, I just laugh at it now, but it used to drive me crazy when certain wrestling parasites would, you know, refer to AEW and their future rights and,

you know, the triple license fees that they were going to get because of what the NHL license fees were. You can't compare wrestling. Wrestling is scripted entertainment. It is what it is. It is scripted. Sports is not scripted. That's the difference. And, And you can call it sports because wrestling is a pretend sport. We pretend that it's an actual competition, but is not. Ad executives don't look at wrestling as a sport unless they're high. It's not a sport. It's like looking at field of dreams that Kevin Caw.

costume movie about baseball and considering it a sport. It's a movie about a sport. It's fiction. It's scripted. It's a great movie and it's entertaining as hell. But it's not a real baseball game, folks. It's not. Now, I think what the similarity, I think,

between legitimate sports and professional wrestling, is it the it's live action remember american gladiator series yes way back that was live action networks love live action wrestling is live action it is not a sport and anybody in the wrestling universe that talks about wrestling from a business perspective as a sport is kind of advertising their ignorance. It's live action. The fact that it's live makes it attractive for a lot of networks because there's just not a lot of live programming out there other than news and sports. So wrestling benefits from being sports adjacent to the to the extent that it's live action. Sports is live action. But that's it. That's the beginning and

end of it. Now, in terms of Barat's question, by the way, hi, Barat. Brat's in Australia, by the way. So we reach people all over the world. Brock and his buddy Sid came out and hang out with us over the 4th of July here in Wyoming, all away from Australia. And his buddy Sid came from India. So it was kind of cool. We had some great food, by the way. It all circles back to food. It always comes back to food. Everything, the world revolves around your stomach. Which is true. But look, I think the live action nature of wrestling is why people tend to want to lump it into sports,

but it's not. Not from an ad sales point of view. If you go into anybody that buys advertising and try to convince them that, well, if you're buying the NFL, you should take a look at wrestling. Just go ask any ad executive at Fox Network about that. That's true. I mean, when you look at the fact that one of the big statements, that the family made after the lack of renewal from Fox for W.O.E was that they were not getting the dollars they were hoping for in ad revenue. So that's from...

And you think of it, if Fox, you think if there's anybody in the world that could convince an ad network, an ad executive, that wrestling is actually a sport, it would be Fox. And they couldn't do it. And they tried for five years. And they were, they did not see the ROI it was necessary to renew. the deal at the level that USA was willing to step up, let alone the fact that Netflix swooped in and paid them $200 million a year just to have live content once a week on their platform. And see, that was a strategy. That was a strategy that WWE was able to take advantage of a network strategy. Netflix has been spending so much money for the last five, six, seven years on content.

They've been building up their library to the point where they've got it about as much as they, you know, you're always going to want the next hot show, right? I'm not suggesting they're not going to invest in new scripted content. But the only way you can grow is to bring in people who aren't currently watching you. And the only way you can do that is bring in something different than your normal fare. And when Netflix decided they want to put more investment into live, wrestling made all the sense in the world because it's. live action. It's not a sport. It's live action, but it works. And it's, and it has value as a result. And that goes all the way back to the beginning of this conversation. If I was Tony Khan, I'd be thanking WWE for being the media juggernaut that they are, because AEW is benefiting

from that. Speaking of AEW's benefit of that, Michael Gavin Ali's show has a super chat. should AEW move to Fuse TV or Reels channel if WBD doesn't get a deal done with AW? Now, I think we can pretty much say at this point, if these reports are out there, AW has a deal that is very close to WBD. One of the interesting aspects of the story is that WBD's exclusivity seems to have gone away with AW. AW is in current negotiations outside of WBD, and that's a big deal to be able to to continue to market more content outside of WBD. Does that give you any thought process that if Fox wasn't interested in WW,

you've said you don't think Fox is interested in AEW, but for a channel like FS1 who saw that bump when Smackdown would move over to it, if they can get that money, get content like that for not pennies on the dollar, but extraordinarily cheaper than what they were spending on Smackdown, it's worth exploring and the fact that AEW may not have an exclusivity clause with WBD is not a small deal either, is it? No, that's a head scratcher for me because you, you know, I think the 170 million is less than what everybody was hoping for and was speculated about a year ago or six months ago.

But it's still a lot of money. Sure. And if I'm spending 170 million with a producer who's supplying me content, I don't want that same content on competitive networks. I think for $170 million, I'm expecting exclusivity. So the fact that AEW was able to get non-exclusive status, that's a head scratcher for me. Look, I know everybody's, you know, when you say FS1, oh, it's Fox.

No, it's not. Well, it is. It's owned by Fox. But FS1 is a microchannel. It's a catch-all. There's so much garbage on FS1, and it's random. Not more from 13. Yeah, it's just random, almost infomercial quality shit.

So it's not a big deal, and it's not going to be a lot of money. It's exposure, and maybe there's a strategy, you know, maybe, again, I don't know, maybe perhaps there's a strategy there where the idea being that let's let's let more people outside of the, Turner footprint, know about AEW, hopefully to attract some of them over to the Turner network to watch some of the core shows, the A shows or the B shows, dynamite collision, whatever. Perhaps that's a strategy. But anybody who thinks that there's going to be any meaningful amount of money associated with FS1 has never done business with FS1. You're looking at $50,000 in episode budgets.

I mean, it's So, interesting point that you bring up there, NXT, moving on to the CW. Their rights deal went from $15 million on USA Network now to $25 million over to the CW. When you stack that all together

with everything W.W.E. is made between Raw, Smackdown, and the W.E. Network being on Peacock, you're talking a lot of money. Would $15 million for channeling FS1 make sense for two-hour content once a week? I don't think so. I don't know. I haven't tried to pitch a show to F.

I don't think I've ever pitched a show to FIS. They didn't have any money when I was producing television. So I never went out on my way to, never took a meeting at FS1 for that reason. They just didn't have budgets that made sense. perhaps they do now. I don't know. That's a good question. Unless you're in the business of selling shows to networks on a day-to-day basis,

nobody would really have an honest answer to that. And I certainly don't. Knowing that AEW is, and as mentioned in the report by John Arun, a second-kear wrestling company, which, look, everyone can say, I like AEW or like WWE. I don't think there's any doubt that everyone knows what the top of the shelf is in professional. wrestling entertainment being w e but if they come available and you see an r oi that you can do

there's not much cheaper content out there either at the same time as you reference netflix they produce a lot of reality tv and it's a lot of money to do so sometimes producing two hours of work can be a different thing when you're actually just supplementing the money here we're paying you for the show and you're covering your own production cost type thing it's a whole different ballgame is it not it is indeed it changes the dynamic

and again I'm going to go back to ad sales you know FS1 is it a lot of money is it not a lot of money is it worth 15 million dollars is not worth 15 million dollars here's the question does the ad sales department division that handles advertising for FS1 think that they can get $15 million a year worth of ad sales

out of a fourth-tier AEW show, on a network that very few people watch, regional sports, I don't know. I'm not in that business, so it's too hard for me to imagine. My gut says no. My gut tells me that this is a,

you know, barely covering the cost of production opportunity. But I could be dead freaking wrong. I don't know because I'm not in that business anymore. One of my favorite things about listening to 83 weeks and all the conversations you and Conrad and you and various people have had is that you speak from your opinion and you're not sitting here saying these are facts. This is the gospel or anything like that. These are your true hard feelings. And I think that gets lost a lot in the online talk about what you say and how you've referenced things. And obviously everything is all clickbait. But one of the major things

that you, no one else besides you can say. And Maddie, Mr. Marijuana, want to put it in a very eloquently way, shit-stained fans, wrestling fans are just trolls. Eric is a wrestling Yoda. Tony is a fanboy. Vince and Eric changed the game, never change E. Thanks for being an 83 weeks member. I think I know where you're going with this, but the fact that Tony Kahn is a wrestling fan should not be held against them, right?

Of course not. I was a wrestling fan It's why I was passionate about the press I'm so passionate about I grew up as a kid in Detroit I'm watching wrestling Saturday mornings on CKLW out of Windsor Canada right across the river from Detroit Bobo Brazil is one of my favorite wrestlers at the time We're talking 1965, 65, 66 somewhere in that area

And I moved to Pittsburgh as a kid In 1968, didn't have any friends, new kid on the block But there was professional wrestling on Saturday nights at six o'clock and i found out about bruno sam martino and i'm going wait a minute i never heard about bruno san martino in detroit what's up with this where's the sheik where's bobo they're the world champions who's this bruno guy where'd he come from i got smarted up i thought the only world champion was the one i was watching as a kid detroit right i love wrestling you know i wouldn't be in the business today if it wasn't for professional wrestling i moved to minnesota same

thing new kid on the block what am i going to do on a saturday night i don't have any friends i'll watch wrestling vergania a w a w i went on to wrestle in high school had an idea i wanted to run it by verne i knew that since i was an amateur wrestler and he loved amateur wrestling i had i had a way to at least get a phone call and that worked in my favor and i got into the business because i was a wrestling fan and i learned the business from the ground up i think the one criticism not a criticism. It's an observation. I was a wrestling fan who eventually went on to become an executive in the wrestling business. Tony's a wrestling fan who bought his way into the wrestling business. I worked my way up. I started out in syndication sales. And I'm not comparing myself necessarily

to Tony, other than to kind of add some context to your question. Yes, I started out as a wrestling fan. Tony started out as a wrestling fan. I learned the business from the ground up. I learned about ad sales. I learned about the value of the content. I learned how to pitch it to general managers and program directors. Before I was ever exposed to how a match was laid out, that was my job. I learned how to post-produce professional wrestling, not because it was my job, but because it was my interest. I wanted to know how you got this stuff on TV. So when I was done selling syndication, after work, I would hang out in the post-production facility with Polish Joe Chupac, who was our Kevin Dunn at the time at AWA.

And I had him teach me how to thread, you know, half-inch tape machines and how to edit and, you know, how to work audio. And I get to sit in production trucks and be an assistant director, you know, menial tasks, but you learn them from the ground up and gave me an opportunity to start promoting shows on my own in markets that I click. cleared outside of Minnesota. So I learned about promotion. I learned the business from the ground up long before I ever became executive. Tony bought his way in. Well, there's nothing wrong with that. If I would have had a rich dad, I would have bought my way in too. Not criticizing for it, but the difference is obvious. When I say Tony doesn't know what he needs to know about

producing wrestling, it's not because I'm an old man screaming at the clouds. It's because it's a fact. He doesn't know what he doesn't know. You can be the biggest fan. I'm a huge Pittsburgh Steeler fan. Does that make me qualified to coach the team? If my dad had enough money and could buy the team and I grew up as a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers, does that make me qualified to coach the team?

And if somebody were to give me the opportunity to coach the team, how do you think I do? So it's not, there's absolutely should not be criticized for getting into the business because he was a fan, quite the opposite. Vince McMahon, based on the stories I've heard, I've never had this conversation with him, but desperately wanted to get into the wrestling business. And his father, Vincent, Sr. didn't want him to and tried to keep him out of it. Vince was a fan.

So there's nothing wrong with being a fan and that being the catalyst for getting into the business. my issue has been Tony hasn't learned enough about the business to be the guy calling all the shots that's Tony's problem and it's evident it's evident in the way he's mismanaged talent it's evident in the way he's overpaid talent

it's evident clearly evidence in the lack of creative and just the fact that there's not even a decent format for the show it's all over the place and it's not because Tony's not smart it's because Tony just hasn't learned and he's learning he's you learn on the job and I learned on the job I learned a lot on the job even though I came from a pretty solid background and a fair amount of experience and a variety of the different aspects of the business of the wrestling business I brought that with me to WCW and then learn more once I got there and learned until the

day that I left the building you're constantly learning Tony's learning on the job too but He doesn't have the foundation that he needs to have success, which is why, as I look at these numbers, they're down 35% year over year across the board. Speaking of learning, we have a super chat from Mr. Whisper. This is a very hot topic right now. Hey, Eric, not sure if you've heard, but any thoughts on Logan Paul bearing Kevin Nash for his criticism of Paul's late wrestling schedule. Now, I saw them go back and forth on social media, and I got a kick out of that. like that that's fun before we get fully into that mr whisper your question will be answered tomorrow morning 715 in the morning it is a premiere here at 83 weeks dot com and eric has a very

interesting take on the whole situation between kevin nash and logan paul and as you can tell by that pretty picture on your screen he'll work at its finest tune in 715 tomorrow morning eastern time will be the premiere of Eric discussing what he thinks about Logan Paul and Kevin Nash. A couple of super chats, Eric. I appreciate you hanging in here at 83weeks.com on this episode of Wise Choices. Jim Com Suvong, and I really hope I pronounce that correctly. Hi, Eric, what are your thoughts on the future of wrestling on linear television? W.E. announced today tickets on sale for Saturday night's main event.

Sounds like it's going to be on NBC in December. do you see more on two linear TV compared to W.E.D.'s transition over to Netflix. No, no, I think this is a, I think you're going to see more of the Saturday night main event type. It quarterly shows. That's, I mean, just the way they're marketing that show, it's, I mean, it's nostalgia from, from the get-go. I just saw the promotion for it for the first time a couple hours ago, actually, social media. It's great. Cool, shit.

It's so cool, but it's all nostalgia. And it's going to be a huge success, I predict, because you've got such a massive fan base, WWE fans on USA between Raw and Smackdown and NXT now, and you're going to be able to bring those, all those fans are going to come together once a quarter to check out the Saturday night main event show. And if they continue to brand it as a nostalgia show and there's constantly throwbacks to the early days and kind of going back to the beginnings of it all, I think it could be hugely successful. Do I think there's going to be a weekly show and linear television? I absolutely do not.

But I don't know. I'm not in the business. I'm not knocking on doors every day selling shows anymore. So perhaps there's an appetite for it. I just, I wouldn't want to have to depend on feeding my. family on that opportunity again right back to the food and feeding we got a couple of it all comes back to food it is got a couple more questions fixed stream bob i'm sorry i missed your question you should have sent it as a super chat thank you for the five dollars next time we

will get you just make sure you send it to the chat loud and proud tray fad says when you were in tna i mentioned huntington west virginia backstage and you were down the earth and took the time to chat with me my nephew made it a special night and i appreciate it That's the goal here at 83 weeks.com. We want you to feel appreciated and special every time we go live. And, oh, Alex, why did you have to ask this question? Who is going to be the eventual culprit of the Who Killed AEW documentary in the future? I'm going to ask you point blank.

AEW is still in business in 10 years, right? Who knows? Could be. I don't know. I gave up predicting the future. I feel pretty good about making wrestling predictions in the short term because I've just got enough experience. I'm pretty good at seeing dots and figuring out how to connect them.

I'm right far more often than I'm wrong when it comes to predictions, far more often. I'm up like 90-some-odd percent. I'm right so often I don't even keep track anymore. That's a fucking right I am all the time. It's a burden. You people think it's easy walking around knowing that you're capable of predicting

the outcomes of things in professional wrestling, like that's some kind of a gift. It's a burden. It's a burden to know as much as I know, particularly when I have to deal with the internet wrestling community and them dumb bastards. Kool-a-drinking sons of bitches that think they know more than they do, but I do

it because I'm passionate about this business. That just felt like a fun thing to do. Alex, who knows? Who knows? Who knows? Let's call Jim Cornett and ask him. I think I know what he'd say. I'm going to leave that one alone.

Eddie Burton said, met you 10 years ago, sir, and you're still the best meet and greet experience I've ever had. Thank you, sir. Meet us every week on 83 weeks.com. Wise choices, the main feed as well. Alex, in a shoot fight with no rules, who's walking away the winter?

Harlem, he did the Steiner Brothers. Sider Brothers, without a question. It's not even a conversation. And neither of them would want to have that conversation. just so you know. I'm pretty sure no one wants to stand across a dark room from Rick Steiner or Steve Ray, let alone Scott Steiner with Booker T just cheering on in the background. You know,

Scott Snyder's got the reputation, right? Because he's a freaking hot head. I've had this weird relationship with Scott over the years. But I've always liked Scott because I understand him. I mean, I get where he's coming from. And one minute he could be laughing and joking. he's the happiest guy in a locker room he's like a 10 year old kid at a party and in 30 seconds later he's chewing himself through a cinder block wall trying to get his hands around somebody that pissed him off

and you never know which one you're going to get so scott is scary in that regard and physically you know i mean they were both amazing amateur wrestlers michigan but rick is the dangerous one like rick would scott would back down from rick like as intimidated as everybody was at Scott, Rick was the one that Scott was intimidated by. So he was the nasty one. But you would never know that because Rick was always happy. I'd never saw,

well, I did. I saw him unhappy a couple times. But not very often, man, he was always just lighthearted, good mood, happy to be there, wanted to do his job as well as he possibly could and have fun with the boys. But in the wrong situation,

that would be a, freaking nightmare. What is the craziest Steiner? I know we're going off on a weird tangent, but that question opened the door and I got to ask it. What is the weirdest Steiner story you can tell on air that you've seen personally heard of? I'm going to,

I'm going to tell a story without a lot of graphic detail because I'm just uncomfortable discussing it. I try nothing even think about it. But when I first got to WCW, one of the first events, might have been my first pay-per-view event. I can't remember. It was an early one. It was in Chattanooga.

Might have been a Halloween havoc. I'm not sure. But it was in Chattanooga. And it was at the college of the university there in. The UTC Arena. UTC Arena. There you go. Thank you for that.

And we didn't have the, a lot of the talent changed in the wrestling mat room, right? And they didn't, didn't have enough locker space, whatever there was. We were all changing in, in the mat room. And I was new, again, new kid on the block. I'm kind of over in a corner, my own business, didn't really know a lot of people. I'm getting dressed. I think I may have been in the company for a month or so, maybe. And all of a sudden, there's this crazy commotion.

Guys are yelling, screaming, laughing, cheering, the Steiner brothers on. and the Steiner's had this guy by the name of Chip. I think his name was Chip Bergum. He was a promoter. Fun guy probably started having a little too much fun with some of the wrestlers. Maybe said something he shouldn't have said in joking, just messing around, trying to be one of the guys, right? Somehow that rubbed one of the Steiner's wrong.

And again, without a lot of graphic detail, before I knew it, this poor bastard was taped up his mouth was taped up so he couldn't yell his hands were taped up duct tape behind his back his feet were duct taped together and there was a pencil involved there's a lot of discomfort involved I'll let you use your imagination but I'm sitting back in my corner getting dressed and I'm watching this and I'm thinking what did I get myself into all of this for $70,000 a year. But yeah, that was my introduction to the Steiner Brothers. And here you are in 2024 discussing a potentially sharp situation with the Steiner's

in a backstage moment with somebody who opened his mouth at the wrong time. But I think that's going to probably do it for wise choices tonight. Let's leave on a high note. On a short note. So we're going to wrap it up. For us, I want to thank everybody for coming out tonight and sitting down with us. This was a conversation that began on AEW's TV deal and ends with the Steiner Brothers, forcibly making sure someone remembers who they are that night in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Thank you all from coming. Continue to support us here, becoming members, more exclusive content. 715 tomorrow morning, Kevin Nash, Logan Paul, Eric Bischoff's reaction to it. Could we see a Logan Paul, Kevin Nash match? at some point in time. I think you'd be surprised by the answer Eric gives us. Thank you all so much for joining us tonight. Eric, anything we need to put a pin in it, as Conrad would say? No, man, I think we got it. I appreciate you, Derek. You kind of jumped in at the last minute, and I appreciate you doing that. This is fun for me, and I hope it wasn't too uncomfortable for you,

and let's do it again soon. No more uncomfortable than that gentleman was in Chattanooga. I don't know how to take that. I'll talk to you later, brother. Guys, thank you very much for joining us. You have a good rest of your night. Raise your hand if you want your nails to look perfect all the time. Me too. I'm Sarah Gibson Tuttle from Olive and June and this is exactly why we created the Manny System. We wanted to make it possible for everyone everywhere to give themselves a beautiful manicure at home. With our tools and our long-lasting polish, each manicure with our Manny System comes out to just $2. That's right, $2.00. No more $30, $40.

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