Anthem Sports Group President Carlos Silva, appeared on the latest episode of The Ariel Helwani Show.
Carlos recently spoke to JohnWallStreet.com about his plans to grow TNA Wrestling, which includes a new media rights deal that would allow them to air TNA’s flagship IMPACT show live 52 weeks a year.
With Helwani, Silva talked on TNA’s partnership with NXT, a new possible TV deal and the departure of Gail Kim, who was with TNA Wrestling for 17-years before she was let go.
On the partnership with NXT:
“You’re seeing our wrestlers on CW on Tuesday nights, on NXT shows almost every week,” Silva said. “And they continue to support us. We continue to support them.”
On a possible new TV deal:
“I think we could be in a 60 to 90 day window to get something done. As you know, the media landscape is changing every single day and literally, week-to-week, things are changing. We just saw some other networks that are going to get sold again this week that are changing hands. You never know. It’s never done until the Is are dotted and Ts are crossed. We’re working hard at it...We’ve been asked by many partners that they’d like it to be live 52 weeks a year so we’re talking through how we would do that. Maybe it wouldn’t go live in January, straight away, 52 weeks, but we would certainly lean into that to try and make it happen.”
On if IMPACT would remain on Thursday Nights:
“Could be up for grabs. You’d have to look at the crowded (landscape). You don’t want to go [says “collision” but unclear if referencing head-to-head with another show or AEW Collision] and you don’t want to start playing that game. Thursday has worked out well so far.”
On the departure of Gail Kim:
“When you come into an organization, you have to look at what’s working and what’s not working, and sometimes you have to make changes, because you got to move forward to continue the growth…and so I had to make a couple of hard decisions, not just with Gail, but with a few other staff, to try and maybe reinvigorate… what I think was already going well.” When asked if reports of the locker room being upset were true, Silva said, “Gail had been there a long time. Of course, it wasn’t an easy decision to make. It was the most difficult decision I had to make so far in running TNA, but I think what’s important is what you do after that, and how you bring people together.”
The interview with Silva is at the 1:55:15 mark of the show.