TNA has Momentum on Heels of Unprecedented WWE/NXT Partnership, Seeks New Rights Partner

TNA has Momentum on Heels of Unprecedented WWE/NXT Partnership, Seeks New Rights Partner

Total Nonstop Action (or TNA) Wrestling is bringing its biggest show of the year –Slammiversary– to the New York metropolitan area next week (July 20). The venue choice, UBS Arena, reflects the company’s rising popularity and leadership’s aspirations for growing live event attendance.

TNA’s pay-per-view shows drew an average of 1,700 fans in 2024. Slammiversary at UBS is set-up for 6,000.

The 23-year-old promotion has benefited from increased visibility since announcing a multi-year strategic partnership with WWE and its developmental company, NXT, in January. 

“We are [regularly] being featured on every major WWE and NXT platform. PLE’s as well as weekly programming on The CW and their other [broadcast] outlets like Peacock,” Carlos Silva (president, Anthem Sports) said. “This [has resulted in] a huge [television] audience lift for [us], along with all the social media support we get from [them].”

WWE’s owned and operated channels have published over 1,000 posts referencing TNA Wrestling and/or one of its stars this year. Blinkfire Analytics reports that those entries have generated more than 205 million impressions worth more than $5.3 million in earned media value.

Now, leadership is focused on finding a new distribution outlet for the promotion, one that can further enhance its exposure and the brand’s traction, and enable parent co. –Anthem Sports & Entertainment– to bring in more sponsors and advertisers.

A “new media rights deal will help us build a more consistent fan base with larger reach,” Silva said. “It will also provide us the opportunity to go live 52 weeks a year, and in today’s world live matters [in terms of fan interest and revenues].”

Anthem Sports & Entertainment has two divisions: Anthem Entertainment Group and Anthem Sports Group (ASG).

The former’s assets include AXS TV (a music and pop culture network), its film channels, HDNET Movies and Hollywood Suite, and GameTV (a game show and competition-series network). The latter has TNA Wrestling, Invicta Fighting (a professional women’s MMA promotion), Fight Network (a largely Canadian combat sports linear network), and Game+ (a North American channel featuring largely emerging sports content) under its umbrella.

The three ASG properties were ‘rolling down the river’, at least outside of live event attendance, when Silva assumed his current position last December.

“They weren’t making enough noise. They weren’t making enough moves,” the Anthem Sports executive said. “You need to be in the sports and entertainment business [to succeed today].”

That means engaging fans 24/7 on social and digital channels. It also means actively marketing and promoting the product and its stars.

Silva spent the first six months of 2025 working to turn Anthem into more of a sports and entertainment company. He extended Invicta FC’s deal with CBS Sports and has helped meaningfully raise TNA’s profile amongst casual wrestling observers by successfully nurturing the partnership with WWE/NXT.

The unprecedented alliance has the competing promotions sharing wrestlers and storylines. TNA star Joe Hendry, for example, participated in WWE’s Royal Rumble, wrestled at WrestleMania 41, and took on NXT Champion Trick Williams at NXT Battleground 2025.

That tie-up “has been massive for us...it elevates our brand [and brings new fans to the promotion],” Silva said.

Blinkfire reports that TNA added nearly 1.1 million new followers to its social media channels in the first five months of ‘25—more than twice as many as it added over the last five of last year.

The next step in TNA’s maturation is finding a new television partner. The promotion’s weekly show, TNA iMPACT!, currently airs on AXS TV. 

“Usually when we're live, we're doing around 100,000 household viewers,” Silva said (that figure is up from <50,000 in H1 ’24).

While iMPACT! is the highest rated program on the network, it doesn’t belong there. AXS TV isn’t in the sports business!

ASG leadership believes the show, and subsequently the promotion, would benefit dramatically from having proper lead-ins and lead-outs its broadcasts.

“That’s the name of the game in programming, Silva said. “A weekly number between 250,000-500,000, in terms of Nielsen-esque P2+ households, is perfectly realistic on a network [that is a good fit and] in 40 or 50 million homes.”

AXS TV is in ~30mm.

500,000 viewers would be in the rough ballpark of what AEW’s Dynamite show draws on TBS in its least viewed weeks (figure does not include viewers watching on HBO Max). But that does not mean TNA is seeking a deal on par with what Tony Khan’s promotion got from Warner Bros. Discovery. 

“Something in the $10mm/year range is where we [and CAA] think we should be,” Silva said.

That may be rich for 104 hours of content. Wrestling has historically been difficult to sell ads against (think: limited pool of advertisers).

The company is confident it will have a new distribution deal in place within the next 60 days. 

As to where the promotion lands?

“We’re talking to [all the established] linear guys and a couple of newer platforms that need a foundational [programming] centerpiece,” Silva said. “There are a couple of networks, that look like Spike [TV] in today's world, we could be a good fit for; the same way [UFC and TNA were for that network a decade or two ago].”

The promotion could split its programming inventory up across platforms too.

In addition to iMPACT and Xplosion (a weekly one-hour version of the show), it hosts four PPVs annually and eight more ‘premier events’ exclusively for TNA+ subscribers.

Sponsorships are TNA’s second largest revenue stream. The promotion recently announced new deals with Zone·ify and BIOFLEX, and it is planning to unfurl a new ticketing partner in the weeks ahead too.

TNA is a live event business at its core. So, ticket sales and merchandising also generate meaningful revenue. The promotion is regularly drawing 2,000-2,500 fans at an average ticket price of $50-$60.

The decision to move into a larger venue, like UBS, reflects the desire to increase attendance and lift gate receipts moving forward.

TNA is not yet profitable. But the business is said to be ‘moving in the right direction’. 

While Silva remains focused on continuing to grow it and the other assets in ASG’s portfolio, he’s simultaneously on the lookout for properties that could be additive.

“People have known me for over the years being on the investment side and raising money, so I get a lot of pitches,” he said. “The combat [sports] ones have kind of been at the top of the stack… but because we have this live event/sports engine, [we] can inject other things into it [too].”

ASG is not expected to move imminently on any M&A opportunities. Its parent company is still trying to figure out how sports fits into the long-term vision.

“Either we keep [the portfolio] and continue to grow [it], or there could be a spinoff of the Anthem Sports Division,” Silva said.

It’s been speculated for months that TKO will eventually wind up with its assets, or at least TNA.

In the interim, Silva and Co. are working to find the right distribution partner and remain focused on continuing to grow the pro wrestling brand.

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