Anthem Sports Executive Wants WWE and TNA Collaboration During WrestleMania Weekend

There has been a significant reorganization at TNA Wrestling, especially noted by the departure of several key backstage personnel. Despite these changes, the collaboration between TNA and WWE is progressing well. An Anthem Sports executive recently emphasized the desire for TNA and WWE to collaborate during WrestleMania weekend, further solidifying their partnership.

Last month, Anthem Sports & Entertainment Inc appointed Rob Kligman as the new Chief Revenue Officer of Anthem Sports Group. He also worked for many years in WWE as their Vice President of Global Digital & Integrated Sponsorship Sales.

While speaking on EssentiallySports’ Think Tank show, Rob Kligman talked about TNA’s efforts to get better distribution deal. With years of experience at WWE as their Vice President of Global Digital & Integrated Sponsorship Sales, Kligman emphasized that distribution is the main differentiator between WWE and TNA. He noted that both brands have strong historical backgrounds and high-quality production and content. Kligman is focused on expanding TNA’s distribution to bring it on par with WWE, aiming to make TNA more accessible to fans worldwide.

”We both (WWE & TNA) have historical realms behind each brand. The brands both can speak for themselves and stand for themselves. Right now, the difference really is the distribution mechanism that WWE uses to push their content out versus what TNA does. Right now, we’re focusing on getting that distribution even larger than it is for TNA. But that’s the big differentiation point. The production is the same quality and the content is the same quality. The difference is the distribution.

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So that’s one of the big reasons why I came on board was to help the distribution, work with our team internally at TNA and lock in an opportunity for the fans to see it worldwide and that’s our ultimate goal but right now, that’s where we see the differentiation point between World Wrestling Entertainment and TNA. It’s simply distribution, because when you look at the content, the production — like I said earlier — is spot-on and the content and the characters are spot-on so, once we get that distribution deal, I think you’re gonna see a little bit more of an even keel between both organizations.”

When asked about the possibility of WWE and TNA collaborating over WrestleMania weekend, Kligman stated that he hadn’t heard anything concrete but found the idea exciting. He outlined a step-by-step approach to business growth, suggesting that a collaboration could eventually happen.

While acknowledging WrestleMania as the pinnacle event in wrestling, he envisioned a future where TNA and WWE events could run parallel on the same weekend, providing fans with more opportunities to engage with both brands.

”That I don’t know yet (if TNA & WWE will collaborate over WrestleMania weekend). I think, again, the way I look at the organization and how I look at building a business is it’s crawl, walk, run. It’s taking those small steps and doing them really right the first time and then mature and get to the second step and get to the next step. That’s an ultimate goal and that would be amazing. I think there’s an opportunity for potentially maybe doing events in the same weekend. Finding a way to do something where we parallel the opportunity for fans to gather around and see content where they wanna see it at their time and that could be an event weekend that parallels TNA and WWE at some point. You just never know. But, obviously, WrestleMania is the ultimate. There is no such thing that’s even bigger than that but, I think the opportunity that could exist to be part of WrestleMania would be an ultimate goal.”

We have also reported on WWE and TNA’s plans for future collaborations. Regardless, we will have to wait and see how WWE and TNA will continue to push forward with their relationship and possibly collaborate during WrestleMania weekend as well.

Do you feel WWE and TNA’s current collaboration will further benefit both companies in the long run? Let us know in the comments section below!