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Dave Meltzer followed up all of this Thursday night with a post on his F4W Board stating "One hour is false. Time buy is false. It's the exact opposite. Look at sports rights, Bellator, Matchroom, UFC on ESPN, people are offering tons of money both for weekly live programming and also to get their streaming services starting. That's the reason this thing is starting this year. One of the reasons the deal hasn't been signed yet is because of multiple bidders." (bold)

He's not wrong. UFC, Bellator, WWE, Matchroom -- even individual athletes like GGG and Canelo are signing huge deals with distributors. However, AEW isn't proven as a television entity. They have some great names, a degree of star power, a fantastic digital reach and the ability to draw for at least a major event. PBC comes to mind as a new entity that was able to broker deals with various networks before landing deals with Showtime, Fox, and others.