Leap Academy with Ilana Golan
Tony Khan: Building AEW into a Billion-Dollar Brand and Competing with Wrestling Giants | E106
Tue, 20 May 2025
Tony Khan was captivated by sports and wrestling from a young age. After immersing himself in sports analytics, he joined his father’s ventures, using his expertise to build a data-driven team at the Jacksonville Jaguars. Witnessing Fulham’s struggles, Tony saw an opportunity to apply his skills to improve the team and took it. His passion for wrestling ultimately led him to launch All Elite Wrestling (AEW). Despite initial skepticism, Tony’s vision and perseverance allowed AEW to thrive, becoming a major disruptor in the wrestling world. In this episode, Tony joins Ilana to share the power of taking bold actions and seizing opportunities. Tony Khan is the founder, president, and CEO of All Elite Wrestling (AEW), a leading professional wrestling promotion. He also holds executive roles with the Jacksonville Jaguars in the NFL and Fulham F.C. in the English Premier League. In this episode, Ilana and Tony will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (01:56) His Early Passion for Sports and Wrestling (04:52) Shifting from Engineering to Finance (08:35) Building a Data-Driven Sports Team at the Jaguars (14:24) Overcoming Setbacks at Fulham FC (18:41) The Birth of All Elite Wrestling (AEW) (22:22) Earning Trust and Disrupting the Wrestling World (28:55) Navigating AEW Through the Pandemic (35:53) Acquiring Ring of Honor to Preserve Its Legacy (38:21) Honoring Wrestling Legends and Their Impact (41:10) Thriving in a Highly Competitive Industry (43:03) The Key to Breaking into Media and Entertainment (46:36) Making the Most of Opportunities in Life Tony Khan is the founder, president, and CEO of All Elite Wrestling (AEW), a leading professional wrestling promotion. He also holds executive roles with the Jacksonville Jaguars in the NFL and Fulham F.C. in the English Premier League. With a background in finance and sports analytics, Tony has revolutionized the business of sports entertainment, positioning AEW as a major competitor to WWE. He was awarded "Promoter of the Year" and "Best Booker" by the Wrestling Observer Newsletter for three consecutive years. Connect with Tony: Tony’s Instagram: instagram.com/tonyrkhan Leap Academy: Ready to make the LEAP in your career? There is a NEW way for professionals to Advance Their Careers & Make 5-6 figures of EXTRA INCOME in Record Time. Check out our free training today at leapacademy.com/training
Chapter 1: What inspired Tony Khan's passion for sports and wrestling?
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Tony Khan, founder and CEO of All Elite Wrestling, very involved in the NFL, Jacksonville Jaguars and football and many other ventures.
AEW is a challenger brand competing in an industry where the industry leader historically has been the most adept company at crippling and smashing their competitors in the history of business. I found it very interesting what was happening with the media rights in the wrestling business.
Chapter 2: How did Tony transition from engineering to finance?
The rights fees for the wrestling shows went up, and it was really only one company that was producing that product at the time, and that was WWE. It occurred to me that somebody could launch a new wrestling promotion. Now, AEW, in 2025, we're on over 150 countries now.
How do you get started with such an audacious goal, if you will?
Well, you have to build credibility and the best way to do that is.
Chapter 3: What innovative strategies did Tony implement at the Jaguars?
Tony Khan, founder and CEO of All Elite Wrestling, valued at, I don't know, $2 billion? Like, come on. He completely shaken the wrestling world. And he's also an investor very involved in the NFL, Jacksonville Jaguars, and football, and many other ventures. You are going to love this today because I want to learn together with you, how does somebody...
influence such a big industry with existing big players. So get ready for a fascinating show about taking bold action. Tony, thank you for being here.
Thank you for having me. It's very kind of you and I'm excited to be on the show and great to see you.
It's going to be amazing. So take us back in time. You are a fan of sports from very early age. Tell me, what was the obsession about sports?
Growing up as a kid, I was really obsessed with television and exciting television. And sports is, to me, the most exciting television. But I watched a lot of TV and I watched a lot of sports and I watched a lot of cartoons and action shows. So I watched G.I. Joe and the host of G.I. Joe, and he was a character in the show, was Sergeant Slaughter. And Sergeant Slaughter is also a wrestler.
So that helped me start to watch wrestling. I also watched The A-Team, which is a great show. I don't know if you watched The A-Team, but it was a fantastic show.
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Chapter 4: How did Tony Khan overcome challenges at Fulham FC?
I was busy watching Smurfs. Like, I don't know what was...
Yeah, sure. First was a great show. That's not as much the stuff I was into, though. I did like some cartoons. I like more superheroes, the Justice League, Super Friends, but also a lot of action shows like The A-Team, which was a great show. And... Hulk Hogan was a character that appeared sometimes as Hulk Hogan on the A-Team.
And he was supposed to be a friend who was in Vietnam with Mr. T, which is pretty unbelievable in hindsight, given their ages and time with this show. But AEW was something that I dreamed of for many, many years. I grew up as a kid loving pro wrestling. I started watching TV as a kid. I had a TV in my room and my parents had a satellite dish in the backyard in the 80s.
Did they love sports as well? Were they watching? Was you or I know your dad was a fan, but were they also watching sports or were they like, what on earth is Tony watching?
Chapter 5: What led to the creation of All Elite Wrestling (AEW)?
No, my parents liked sports. I grew up in Champaign, Illinois, and the University of Illinois sports are a huge part of living in central Illinois. People follow Illinois football and basketball really closely. So I grew up watching a lot of football and basketball, especially the Illini, but also the NFL and the NBA and followed other sports too, baseball and soccer and other things.
And I really grew up as a big fan of wrestling above all else, as a huge sports fan collecting cards. But the one sport that never ends, there's no off season. It goes 365 days a year, does not take a break. 52 weeks a year of pro wrestling. There's no reruns. It's new wrestling every week. And that really, as you're a big sports fan kid, can keep you hooked on that.
So when the NFL goes on break after the Super Bowl and when college basketball breaks after March Madness, you don't really get that 52-week-a-year chance to really follow something you love. And wrestling does offer that.
And meanwhile, I think your father at this point is a pretty successful businessman. Like he's definitely doing some incredible things. How do you think that impacted you or whether it's pressure on you to show up or inspired you? What do you think that did to you?
Chapter 6: How did AEW earn trust in the competitive wrestling industry?
My dad is a very successful businessman. And as I was growing up, he was really building his business day by day, week by week. And there was a lot of work he put into it, but he was also away working a lot. So I did see my dad as much as he could, but he was... working hard building his business up and traveling the world.
And my dad is a big sports fan, took me to games, built his auto parts empire, and started companies, built new factories all over the world, and eventually was able to buy the NFL's Jacksonville Jaguars in 2012. And it was many years building towards that. But when I was growing up as a little kid, it seemed like an impossibility.
But definitely my dad always loved football as far as I remember and was great about taking me to sports when he was around.
And do you think they pushed you towards like, did you know that you're going to be a business person? Or did you think, you know, I'm just going to go study, I'm going to find a job? What did you think?
Yeah, I definitely had some pressure from my parents to do something of significance in their eyes. There was academic pressure, but also pressure to go out and do something important at work. So I really love my parents very much. And they're very hardworking people and very smart people, but they are very motivated and they motivated me.
So you go and you actually study finance, right? Why finance? Was there a reason for it? Was it part of a big plan or was it something you were drawn to?
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Chapter 7: What challenges did AEW face during the pandemic?
Well, I changed majors at the University of Illinois. I was in engineering school. For me, yeah, I always thought I would go into business and I was in engineering school and it's a lot of work. And I was having a lot of fun in college and also doing things like writing wrestling shows for fun and trading wrestling tapes and posting on wrestling message boards and watching lots of basketball.
The Illinois basketball team was really, really good when I was there and watching lots of football and going to the football games. And it was a lot of work in engineering school and also a lot of the stuff I really wanted to learn, I was learning in my minor, which was finance. And they called it the secondary field of concentration. So my secondary field, I found far more interesting.
And also I found that I could manage my studies and still do all the other things I wanted to do and be a solid student, but also go out several days a week
Was that a hard decision, by the way, to move from engineering? Like, did that feel like you're giving up on something or you were like, oh my God, that's what I want.
I was so much happier instantly. I enjoyed the classes more. I had so much more free time and I saw my friends more and it was fantastic. I learned things that I apply more and I took a few years of the engineering classes. I have an insane amount of math credits. for somebody that graduated with the degree I have. So I could go back and do something with them sometime.
I don't know if I ever will now.
I don't think you ever will, but that's okay.
But yeah, I had done a lot of the work already before I switched. But no, I'm really glad to do it. And I was much happier and I was happy with the degree.
And it's definitely serving you now more than the other. But so after college, you're finishing finance and you're actually taking some interesting roles. Talk to us a little bit about the first role and how did that all shape you?
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Chapter 8: What is the secret to Tony Khan's success in media and entertainment?
amount of work that's done on all 32 teams with machine learning and football research looking at all the plays researching all the personnel scouting game data and that's a huge part of nfl preparation now preparation for the draft for free agency for the upcoming games against your opponents it's a huge part of football and people have been building up staffs in recent years
The Jaguars were one of the first teams to really build that. And now we have a great infrastructure. And what's really great is we have a young group of executives that's really applying it. We have a very young coach and a young general manager, and they're very data-driven guys.
And it's a stark contrast to when I came into the organization in 2012, as far as the uptake and the interest in the football research and all of it. analytics and applying the data into making personnel decisions and studying the game.
So for the first whatever years that adds up to be, you're kind of an employee, if you will. And at some point you decide to start your own thing. What happened there?
A lot. The Jaguars, I went in in 2012. And around that time, my father had announced the purchase in January 2012, but he'd been working on it for a couple years after the Rams purchased. It was stopped in 2010. So I'd spent about four years studying football stats pretty much every day. And I put together what was the football technology group that still existed at the Jaguars.
I still am an employee of the Jaguars. And... still work in that research group and really enjoy it. We just got done with the draft and it's the most data-driven group of decision-makers we've ever had. Somewhere in that time, my father also bought the football club in the Premier League. I had never worked in Premier League or around English football at all. That was happening around that time.
away from me and then here at the jaguars here in jacksonville i was do hiring a lot of vendors the best vendor i hired actually was a pair of guys out of boston that ran a small business where it was two guys and they had another person so it's really two founders plus one employee so three people total there's still with us to this day
And the two founders put together some really exciting technology and some very, very cool analytics research. And I found that their tools, the reports that they gave us were just fantastic. And I asked them if they were interested in working together and building a bigger relationship. And they said they would really be interested if I would invest in their business and help them grow it.
And I was interested in that too. So I did. And that was in 2014. And within a year, I bought the business outright and became the 100% owner of True Media Networks. We're the largest and best sports analytics engineering firm in the world. The CEO, Rafe Anderson, and the president and head of technology, Jeff Stern. They are absolutely fantastic people.
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