Tony Khan says AEW is the #1 wrestling company in the UK ‘by all major business metrics’

CNBC’s Street Signs aired an interview with AEW owner, president & booker Tony Khan this morning (Aug. 22), focused on his company’s All In PPV at Wembley Stadium coming up this Sunday.

Khan said that in addition to the potentially historic attendance, All In is also already doing big PPV numbers for AEW — making a show that looked like a gamble when it was announced an even bigger financial success.

“We’re going to make a ton of money on AEW All In. Frankly, before the pay-per-view, it’s already a wildly profitable event based on the ticket sales, which are massive, in the neighborhood of $10 million in tickets we’ve sold. It’s really exciting. We’re going to have 80,000 fans at Wembley Stadium. It’s going to be all kinds of attendance records, and also just a great, great evening of pro wrestling in England.

“The PPV advances have been incredibly strong, our biggest in years, one of our top two of all-time in fact — and possibly our biggest ever for PPVs when it’s all said and done. But it’s also so huge as a live event that it’s already guaranteed to be a profitable event.”

All In’s success is evidence that AEW is the top wrestling company in the United Kingdom, per Khan. Speaking about how “massive” UK TV rights are for his company, he said:

“We are the number one company by all major business metrics now in the UK, because we have by far the biggest weekly TV audience with AEW on ITV. And, now we’ve put on the biggest event with AEW at Wembley Stadium this Sunday. So it’s very exciting with All In coming to England, that is one of the biggest markets. And that is a place where AEW is not just a challenger brand. We are the industry leader.”

AEW’s programming airs on the free channel ITV4 in the UK, which WWE’s programming is on the pay service TNT Sports (owned by AEW’s domestic television partner Warner Bros Discovery).

Khan also said that the company’s Fight Forever game has “been a very successful launch”, and expressed his hope that AEW programming will land on his “favorite streaming platform”, which just so happens to be owned by WBD: “I would love to land on Max, home of all my favorite shows.”

He mentioned that WBD holds exclusive streaming rights to AEW content, but apparently haven’t decided what to do with those rights besides selling events like All In on their Bleacher Report platform.

Here’s a clip of Khan’s chat with Street Signs: