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In an interview with Forbes, Shad Khan, father of Tony Khan said he was surprised by AEW's success so far. Shad Khan is also the owner of Flex-N-Gate Corporation, NFL Team Jacksonville Jaguars, Fulham Football Club, and All Elite Wrestling. Tony Khan is the President & CEO of AEW.
Shad Khan's current net worth is estimated to be $8.3 Billion. He was the one who actually provided the main funding for AEW to get it started up. Khan also said that it was a risk, but it was worth taking. He said, (H/T Wrestling Inc)
"This is one of those cases where as a father, you don't mind being wrong. So, it's absolutely... I mean, this was obviously my son Tony, who had a passion for it. This was his idea and God's blessed us. We have the financial means, so we'll try it. And you get to a stage in life where you can fail and it's not life-threatening, and this was one of those. So, you know, I am as surprised as anybody."
Shad Khan also believed that pro-wrestling was an underserved market recounting the Monday Night Wars and the huge fan base it had at a time. He said,(H/T Wrestling Inc)
"The golden age of wrestling would be in the 90s when you had two competitive leagues, WCW and in those days, WWF. And we know, you know with wrestling, you know it's scripted. But what was definitely unscripted, real was the competition. Let's say in those days you had 10 million hardcore wrestling fans, today there are probably 2 million or less as there was an audience that was under-served. You also had talent, there were a bunch of pay-per-views earlier this year and that was a great metric. That the audience for those shows, they were some of the biggest pay-per-views in the last 20 years. So, that was an indicator that there was an under-served market."
From the looks of it, Khan had full faith in his son, Tony. Like most wrestling fans, he is hoping that AEW continues to be around in the years to come.
