Tony Khan On Licensing Music – ‘I Pay For The Rights In Perpetuity’

On a recent edition of the “Battleground Podcast,” AEW President Tony Khan discussed his strategy to use licensed songs at the company’s events, despite the hefty expenses that come along with such tracks.

You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:

On how he views each music licensing deal: “That’s why I wanted to pay the extra and go the extra mile to get ‘Walk’ by Pantera. Pantera was great and worked with us and we worked out a reasonable deal. I compare music licenses and wrestling to trades in pro sports. It’s like, you can do your best, but every trade is its own transaction, it has to be between, at least two willing parties.”

On the spectrum of deals that can result from this pursuit: “Sometimes people ask for money that I don’t think is reasonable, other times we have gotten deals that I thought were very fair.”

On the ongoing benefits of licensing music: “Every great moment where we’ve licensed music, we still have that music, I paid for the rights in perpetuity. I’ve had a lot of other opportunities to license music and work with a lot of great artists. We’ve done all kinds of great stuff, and hopefully, someday all of that will be available for people to watch in perpetuity on the library forever.”

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