this might be bad news for AEW as they have a TV network on TNT, one of the networks owned by one half of the soon to be merging mega-content maker, as with WCW (which was owned by Turner when it merged into TimeWarner) they were completely impacted hard by the failed AOLTimeWarner merger of the early 2000s, as with that merger, WCW had become so much of a money pit and having TV Ratings and legal issues (they were sued by talent who were also minority i.e. Asian, Hispanic and Black talent for racism) as well as the huge contract of talent who defected from WWE (then WWF) to WCW for a bigger payday after WCW signed Hulk Hogan in 1994, which triggered the start of WCW's rise and later contributed to it's downfall, AOLTimeWarner wanted out of the wrestling business and planned on selling it in late 2000/early 2001, but the actual death came at the hands of one executive hired to oversee TNT & TBS, he decided to canceled WCW cause TV ratings were bad and he felt that wrestling was no longer a fit on "his networks" so therefore, it killed a plan of a group of investors including Eric Bischoff to buy WCW out, as the thing that killed the buyout was no TV, and it lead to WWE buying the company out and thus putting it out of business (there were plans to have WCW continue as a separate brand of WWE but Viacom executives running TNN (now Paramount Network) didn't like that and thus was canceled and in it's place was a failed "Invasion angle" on WWE TV in 2001 and a actual brand extension that was originally planned for WCW end up happening but instead of "WWE" and "WCW" as brands, it became "Raw" and "SmackDown" as brands. the AOLTimeWarner merger was the bust of the late 90s/early 2000s wrestling bubble, as wrestling never recovered from it's late 90s/early 2000s highs.
so for AEW, they better hope they have the same people overseeing TNT now to stay post-merger to keep them on TNT, if not, they need to look at the possibility of moving to another network.
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