Yesterday, TKO Group Holdings held its very first Financial Earnings call since the organization was officially formed from the merger of WWE and UFC back in September. The call was hosted was TKO CEO Ari Emanuel, President & COO Mark Shapiro, and CFO Andrew Schwimmer, a notable change from WWE’s Financial Earnings calls prior to the merger in that WWE President Nick Khan did not participate. Despite being the Executive Chairman of the company, Vince McMahon was also not involved.
During the call, questions were raised regarding an increase in WWE sponsorship opportunities following the merger as well as the possibility of ‘super weekends’ featuring both WWE and UFC events. Ari Emanuel tackled the subject directly, revealing that McMahon himself has now become more open to the idea of increasing sponsorship potential throughout WWE in a similar manner to how Endeavor has increased UFC’s sponsorship potential in recent years.
“Here’s what I would say to you,” Emanuel began. “Vince [McMahon] has been very open to… before, he was clean in the ring and around, he’s now very open into increasing the inventory that we can work with – like we increased the inventory at the UFC.
Very happy about that, we think there’s huge opportunities around the stadium so that’s a good sign. We are starting, in some territories, looking at a Friday night, Saturday night, and a Monday night for both WWE, UFC, and WWE again. That will give us an indication of our ability to put that on, once we can prove that model, I think we can take it globally and really move it domestically pretty easily.”
“I’ll just re-emphasize, there’s a tonne of inventory now that Vince and team are opening up at the WWE for us.”
Alongside their latest financial reports, TKO also issued a new SEC filing which listed a new risk factor to the business’s success: Vince McMahon himself. The filing states that as a result of the hush money payments McMahon made in the past, and the subsequent federal investigation made into them, McMahon being part of the company’s Board Of Directors “could have adverse financial and operational impacts on our business.”
If you use any quotes from this article, please give a h/t to Haus of Wrestling and credit TKO Group Holdings.