AEW Chief Has Disappointing Take On Performers Not Appearing On TV

All Elite Wrestling (AEW) president Tony Khan has addressed the controversy about performers publicly complaining about their lack of TV time in a recent appearance on Fightful Wrestling's Grapsody podcast.

"Sometimes there's a reason for that: somebody's hurt, somebody's working on a project, somebody's being repackaged, or frankly, there's just not enough slots in three hours. On other sports teams, you don't really see it as much," Khan said.

"It's not really common in the NFL for the backup quarterback to blame the coach because he's not playing. It's not really common in the NBA for the backup point guard to blame the coach because he's not getting minutes."

In a way, Khan's comments do make sense since the reality for both AEW performers and fans is that not everyone's going to get their time in the spotlight due to their weekly Dynamite and Rampage shows only having 180 minutes of TV time combined on TBS on Wednesdays and Fridays respectively.

AEW is doing its best to accommodate everyone though with its Dark and Dark: Elevation programs that air on its official YouTube channel at 7:00 PM ET on Tuesdays and Mondays respectively.

However, the problem there is that the reach of their Dark and Dark: Elevation shows is slightly limited due to the fact that the two shows are mostly used to round out the details presented on its main shows.

Dark and Dark: Elevation will still have the occasional random match thrown together to showcase the talent the promotion has on the roster, but viewership on each program varies from the millions to a couple hundred thousand.

It can be argued that it lacks the reach that mainstream TV still has despite YouTube being a widely accessible platform.

For context, WWE has five hours of weekly programming between Raw and SmackDown while having a dedicated two-hour weekly timeslot to showcase its developmental stars via NXT plus an additional 30-to-60-minute episode of NXT Level Up.

It would be unfair to compare the goliath that is WWE to the recently established AEW because of how long both promotions have been running, but deciding to go toe-to-toe with the former is inevitably going to have fans draw comparisons between the two.

What makes Khan's comments even more confusing is that his comparison between the NBA and his pro wrestling promotion is that a lot of NBA sixth men and bench pieces have a strong case for being starters on other teams.

The cherry on top though is the fact that Khan is involved in the operations of his father Shahid's Jacksonville Jaguars in the NFL and English Premier League club Fulham–the latter of which he holds the position of general manager, alongside other responsibilities, since 2017.

With regards to the Miro (Rusev in WWE) situation that was previously reported, it is becoming more apparent that AEW is suffering a case of mismanagement from the top.

AEW was surfing on a wave of momentum when it was established in 2019, but this year was more of a challenge to navigate and the hard times are likely to continue in 2023 until Khan and his management group can right the ship sooner rather than later.