Sports taketh away, but sometimes sports giveth too. AEW Dynamite had to be moved to Tuesday night this week because its broadcast partner, Turner, simply has too many sports going on, with the NBA tipping off its new season, the NHL season already underway and the MLB Playoffs heading into the League Championship Series round.
The last of those was the particular issue for Dynamite, with TBS slated to air a playoff game on Wednesday, and TNT unavailable due to the NBA. So to Tuesday it went, where it ran the risk of lower ratings thanks to being on an unfamiliar night. AEW has loaded the card with four title matches and promoted the heck out of the night change, but that risk remained.
Except now sports and Mother Nature may have given the promotion a gift instead. The deciding Game 5 between the Cleveland Guardians and the New York Yankees was rained out Monday night, forcing it to be rescheduled for 4:07 ET on Tuesday. Playoff baseball games routinely run more than three hours, meaning this one, featuring the most popular baseball team in the U.S., could run right up to the time Dynamite starts at 8 p.m.
That’s one heck of a lead-in, meaning the program that airs right before Dynamite. A much larger number of people figure to be watching Guardians-Yankees than the normal fare that precedes the show on Wednesdays (usually a syndicated episode of “The Big Bang Theory”), so if even a fraction of them stick around, Dynamite may not only avoid a dip from airing on a different night but actually benefit from it instead.
There’s a catch, however, which was discussed quite a bit on social media Monday night once the playoff game was postponed. Guardians-Yankees could also run even longer, especially if it goes into extra innings. Then what?
Dynamite could be delayed to start after the baseball game, which wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if it’s not too long. Starting at, say, 8:20 p.m. ET could work, provided TBS is fine with it running long as well. Considering sports are involved in all this, it should ne.
The other option would be to bump Dynamite to a different Turner channel. TNT, as noted, is unavailable. But TruTV, which the company uses as part of its coverage of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament every year during March Madness, figures to be in the mix. Dynamite could start there and move to TBS when baseball is over, which wouldn’t be ideal but would be doable.
Making this even more intriguing is that Dynamite is directly up against NXT for the first time in quite a while, so there will be competition for eyeballs even among regular wrestling viewers. WWE has loaded up that show with main roster talent to prepare for the battle.
All of which is to say that this is about to be an especially interesting and possibly unpredictable night in televised wrestling, and a lot of people will be waiting anxiously to see how it plays out.