fightful

What we've heard about AEW PPV and HBO MAX

Added 2025-08-29 03:07:16 +0000 UTC

News could be coming on the HBO Max-AEW PPV situation.

Andrew Zarian of Mat Men Radio and Fightful's Beyond the Bell noted on August 28 that he'd heard news was coming on the long awaited platform of HBO Max hosting AEW PPV shows.

Fightful was told at the time of the AEW-WBD announcement that the infrastructure on the HBO Max app was nowhere near ready for live PPV or paywall-within-paywall. There were some that were even surprised that it ended up getting announced at that point instead of later.

Those we spoke to expect additional platforms to continue to show AEW PPVs even after the integration onto Max. This year, AEW added Amazon Prime at a distributor, and dropped Triller domestically, while retaining them internationally.

Over the course of the year, we've heard a few different possibilities regarding AEW PPVs. One idea we'd heard is that the cost of Max would be discounted from AEW PPVs for each purchase, which would obviously be good news to anyone who subscribes to the platform already. Another was that a $10 discount would be applied on HBO Max. We've not heard anything resembling PPVs being on the service at no additional cost. That would require a reworking of AEW's deal with WBD as that is a significant revenue driver for AEW.

There was also discussion that on AEW broadcasts, HBO Max would be the preferred method pushed on shows that air on WBD, for obvious reasons.