AEW Drops The Ball On Huge Media Opportunity During First LA Visit

AEW recently made its long-anticipated debut in Los Angeles. By all accounts, the trip was a major success. Warner Bros. Discovery held a party for the AEW wrestlers and staff, and Tony Khan was enthusiastic afterward. Unfortunately, Khan’s promotion missed a key opportunity to get some excellent media coverage in LA.

The Los Angeles Times is considered one of the United States’ newspapers of record. While the industry has slowly been dying for years, it is still considered a very prestigious source. A report indicates that while AEW was in LA, The Times reached out for a story, but nobody ever returned their calls.

In this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer expressed his disbelief at a young company missing such an easy opportunity. Meltzer believes that Warner Bros. Discovery, owners of the networks that broadcast AEW television, would have been impressed if they saw such a story. Instead, AEW inexplicably did not answer the call.

“When AEW was in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times had interest in doing a story on the promotion and the company never got back to them. It’s not like this doesn’t happen with WWE at times, even with major outlets, but AEW isn’t in the position to not work with media at that level. A part of this story that’s even more important is that many significant decision makers in WBD are based in Los Angeles, and while the value of the local newspaper is small compared to the past, the Times is still one of the prestige papers in the country.

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WBD if they would see a positive article on one of their properties in that newspaper for the non-wrestling fans in the company, which would be a large percentage, it would make them feel it’s a bigger and more positive part of their television inventory. And having that happen this year would be more important than any year in company history.”

Tony Khan has made frequent media appearances to promote AEW, including small podcasts and YouTube channels. It seems like a big gaffe to not work with the Los Angeles Times on a story when they were asking for it. Unless there are circumstances we do not know about, AEW missed a big opportunity to impress their only television partner.

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