PARKS’S TAKE: TNA is about to double their potential audience, but do they have the roster and booking to grow?

TNA and AMC announced a deal this morning that will give TNA its broadest television reach in some time. It’s a day of excitement for fans of the TNA brand as well as for those within the company.

Now comes the hard part: Living up to the reported $30 million price tag AMC is shelling out for TNA’s Thursday night programming.

Since Anthem Sports & Entertainment took over the company in 2017 and, since airing on AXS TV beginning two years later, TNA has largely existed as a means to provide content for Anthem’s television channel.

AXS is in so few homes that TNA has largely gone under the radar when it comes to ratings and viewership the last few years, certainly not scrutinized in the same way AEW and WWE programming has been. Now that will no longer be the case. The pressure will be on to live up to AMC’s standards, the first time TNA will have to meet third-party expectations in a long time.

While the benefit of the move is that TNA will now be in double the homes they were on AXS, their roster will be in flux come their January AMC debut. As noted in a previous column I wrote in the PWTorch Newsletter, a large percentage of TNA’s roster will have their contracts come due over the next few months.

As it stands, their roster is not one that feels must-see. They have some legitimately great individual performers like Leon Slater and Mike Santana. But in terms of the larger-than-life personas that grab people and make them want to tune in, there’s certainly a void. Will they use some of that $30 million to be more of a player in the free agent market than they have been recently?

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This is where TNA’s partnership with NXT comes in. It’s unknown what part their relationship with WWE/NXT played in getting this AMC deal; it couldn’t have hurt. There are conflicting reports out there about whether the two companies will continue to work together into 2026. It would be in TNA’s best interest to do so, supplementing their roster with NXT stars while also, ideally, getting plugs for their new digs on NXT TV.

Coming off a pretty universally panned Bound for Glory PPV, especially as it relates to their handling of Santana’s title loss, TNA could use some good news. But with a middling creative and so-so roster, they’ll need to improve both areas pretty drastically now that they’re on more even footing with their pro wrestling contemporaries. They’ll be under the microscope more than they have been in the recent past. Let’s hope they’re up for the challenge, as a healthy third brand benefits the industry and the wrestlers in it.