Tony Khan: AEW has ‘great relationships’ with both sides of impending WBD split

Image: JJ Williams

If AEW head Tony Khan is concerned about the impending brand split within Warner Bros. Discovery, he isn’t showing it.

Khan spoke with Yahoo Finance during this week’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity where he was asked about the news last week that WBD intends to split off its cable channels into one publicly traded company while their film studios, Max, and other properties are split into another.

While he didn’t give much in the way of insight, Khan said with both sides, “we have great relationships with everybody at the top.” He noted that WBD head David Zaslav (moving to studio side) put their deal together while Gunnar Wiedenfels (moving to cable network side) was very involved as the WBD chief financial officer.

“The two of them and Bruce Campbell really negotiated (their most recent contract) with AEW and myself and my team. So, on both sides, we’ve got the great relationships and both sides that really love AEW and have come to be great partners with AEW,” Khan said.

The proposed split would take effect in mid-2026. AEW is in year one of their latest WBD TV contract that runs through 2027 with an option year for 2028.

Khan noted earlier in the interview that 2025 has been “a huge year for us” and that they “grew the business so much with the simulcast,” creating a new audience with their simulcast with Max in addition to growing their cable audience year-over-year. He said that when their simulcast began in January 2025, people assumed their cable viewership would decrease but that it actually went up.