All Elite Wrestling scales a global empire with Signiant

Founded in 2019, All Elite Wrestling (AEW) has emerged as a disruptive force in professional wrestling. With weekly shows like Dynamite and Collision, major pay-per-view events, and the acquisition of Ring of Honor, AEW has quickly grown from a single show to a global entertainment brand. Its content now airs in 140 countries and eight languages, requiring a reliable, modern media infrastructure.

From the beginning, AEW understood that to rival the distribution of established global sports leagues, a strong file transfer solution was essential. Delivering weekly content, managing version control, maintaining tight deadlines, and meeting varying codec requirements for each broadcast partner is a complex process that can only flow properly with mission-critical tools.

AEW needed a way to streamline global content distribution while maintaining control, visibility, and reliability across all transfers.

After evaluating many tools, it adopted Signiant Media Shuttle for its production needs and to centralise and simplify its global distribution. With branded portals organised by show, partners access only the content they’ve licensed. Media Shuttle enables fast, secure delivery of broadcast masters and supporting files, while AEW retains full administrative control.

For AEW, the value of Signiant Media Shuttle goes far beyond simple file transfer. It’s a foundational tool that supports the speed, scale, and complexity of a fast-moving media brand. AEW relies on Signiant to ensure consistent, error-free delivery to some of the biggest broadcasters in the world with total confidence that the files will be delivered on time, in the right format, and to the right hands.

Capturing the intensity

Every week, AEW delivers a packed lineup of programming — Dynamite on Wednesdays, Collision on Saturdays, nine annual pay-per-view events, and a growing slate under the Ring of Honor brand, including weekly episodes and three additional streaming PPVs per year.

To capture the intensity of live wrestling, AEW depends on the energy and precision of an onsite production team, but remote workflows also play a critical role. Even before COVID pushed the industry towards distributed models, AEW was already investing in ways to extend production beyond the venue.

“AEW was very fortunate to benefit from the change in times when it came to technology in almost establishing a remote workflow before COVID really made it commonplace,” says Mike Mansury, EVP and head of global production, AEW. “But in order for us to execute our product in the best way possible, it has to be done onsite; it’s such a combination of theatre and sport that you just don’t have that connection to it if you’re doing it remotely.”

Mike Mansury, AEW

With Signiant Media Shuttle, media from each event is quickly transferred to AEW’s Nashville post facility, where it’s used to create additional content and support global distribution — ensuring fans everywhere stay connected to the action.

To meet the demands of a global audience, AEW’s post team creates two distinct mastering formats. For domestic platforms, they produce an HD ProRes 29.97 master — roughly 90GB for a two-hour show. For international partners, they generate a 25p HD MXF version, typically around 40GB. Both are uploaded to Signiant Share portals for immediate access by more than 30 licensed partners worldwide.

AEW’s hybrid approach preserves the energy of live wrestling while optimising post-production through a distributed model — all connected by a high-performance backbone powered by Signiant.

AEW VP of global partnerships, Shane Emerson, spent most of his pre-AEW career working with IBM Aspera, but when AEW needed to expand to a more robust global distribution model, Emerson and his team took a fresh approach.

“I’ve grown up in the business with Aspera,” he says. “But when the AEW opportunity came, we looked at everything: Amazon’s delivery platform, Aspera, Signiant. We ran the gamut on tests and what would work for our team.”

AEW needed a system that could scale quickly, integrate with its AWS backend, and support the broader infrastructure — including its Snowflake data platform. What also tipped the scales was a combination of factors — cost, flexibility, security and ease of use.

The Signiant Platform enables fast, reliable transfers without hidden costs or constraints. It delivers the speed AEW demands without the operational overhead or high total cost of ownership.

Now, AEW doesn’t have to worry about file sizes, transfer limits, or charges based on bandwidth consumption. Signiant simply “checked all the boxes.”

Easy global distribution

Back in 2019, All Elite Wrestling had just one international partner — ITV in the UK. When Emerson joined AEW, there was no formal distribution process in place; the team would simply upload a single file for a single partner.

“We knew we needed a robust system that could grow with us to distribute to multiple clients and just be industry standard,” explains Emerson.

Since then, AEW has scaled dramatically. Today, the company delivers content to over 140 countries in eight languages. With Signiant serving as a single source of truth, all partners access content through a unified platform — giving AEW full visibility and control over who’s accessing what, and when.

The AEW team designed the distribution system using Signiant Media Shuttle portals as a single access point for partners. Each event — whether All In, Ring of Honor, or a major pay-per-view — has its own uniquely branded Share portal, organised by season, so partners can quickly locate the content they’ve licensed.

“We work with the top broadcasters in the world who only have access to the content they have licensed. That’s a great feature for us to have that kind of protection within the system,” Emerson states.

“We knew we needed a robust system that could grow with us to distribute to multiple clients and just be industry standard”

Since adopting Signiant, AEW has built a reputation for reliability, making content available within two hours after each show — totaling over 260 hours a year.

“If we’re delayed by even 10 minutes, people jump the gun and want to start downloading,” Emerson laughs. “They’re just in a hurry because our team has been rock-solid about getting the shows up.”

As AEW’s global presence has grown, so too has the importance of secure content delivery. In an era of heightened concern around data privacy and content protection, contractual requirements regarding file transfers have become more stringent. Like many leading media companies, AEW has responded by making secure file transfer a fundamental part of its global media operations.

The Signiant Platform is built for this new reality. With SOC 2 Type 2 certification and Trusted Partner Network (TPN) assessments, it provides the security assurances required by top-tier partners and studios. For AEW, it also delivers peace of mind that valuable content is protected at every stage of the workflow.

At the user level, AEW benefits from granular access controls that ensure internal teams and global partners can only access the content they’re authorised to use.

“With new staff it is very easy. We set them up with access to upload, download — whatever we need internally,” says Emerson. “I love the simplicity of adding the email access to just download.” This blend of enterprise-grade security and ease of use is essential to AEW’s fast-paced media environment.

As AEW steps into an even larger spotlight — with more content, more platforms, and more fans — Signiant will continue to play a key role in making the show go on. From backstage to broadcast, AEW knows their media will move with the same precision and passion that defines everything they do in the ring.