Ultimate Fighting Championship and World Wrestling Entertainment will combine to form a new $21.4-billion fighting sports and entertainment powerhouse, majority owned by UFC parent Endeavor.
The newly combined publicly traded company, which does not yet have a name, will be led by Endeavor Chief Executive Ari Emanuel, the companies said Monday. Vince McMahon will serve the combined company as executive chairman, the same title he held at WWE.
Endeavor, which also owns Hollywood talent agency WME, will hold a 51% controlling stake in the new company. WME shareholders will have a 49% interest. The combined company will trade under the stock ticket TKO and intends to list on the New York Stock Exchange.
Emanuel will continue in his role as CEO of Endeavor and Mark Shapiro will be president and chief operating officer of Endeavor and the new publicly traded company. Nick Khan will remain president of WWE, and Dana White will remain president of UFC.
“Together, we will be a $21+ billion live sports and entertainment powerhouse with a collective fanbase of more than a billion people and an exciting growth opportunity,” McMahon said in a prepared statement Monday.
The deal values WWE at $9.3 billion. Endeavor is contributing UFC at an enterprise value of $12.1 billion. Both Endeavor and WWE will contribute cash to the new combined business. The deal is expected to close in the second half of this year.
UFC and WME had a combined revenue of $2.4 billion at the end of their fiscal 2022 year, with 10% revenue growth each year since 2019, according to Endeavor.
The deal comes after a period of turmoil at the WWE.
The 77-year-old McMahon, who took over his father’s regional wrestling promotion business and turned in to a global media brand, announced his retirement in July following reports that company money was used to pay off sexual harassment victims.
But McMahon recently returned as executive chairman, and the WWE announced in January it hired an financial advisor to facilitate a sale.
Multiple parties were rumored to be in the running for the popular asset at one point, including ESPN owner Walt Disney Co., Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
The WWE is a significant provider of live TV programming, which has become more valuable to networks as viewers have shifted to streaming video for scripted movies and series.
The WWE has media rights deals with NBCUniversal, which airs “Monday Night Raw,” and Fox Corp., which carries “Friday Night Smackdown” on its broadcast network. Both are said to be coming up for renewal.
In a CNBC interview, McMahon said the recent scandal had no bearing on the decision to sell the business that his family has controlled for 70 years. “Things have to evolve,” McMahon said. “This is the right business decision. This is the right family decision.”
Asked about his legacy, McMahon said, “I’ve made mistakes both personally and professionally in my 50 year career. I owned up to every single one of them and I’ve moved on.”
This is the latest deal for Endeavor, which went public in April 2021.
The company began in 1995, after Emanuel and three other ICM agents (Rick Rosen, Tom Strickler and David Greenblatt) defected to form their own agency and all put up their homes for collateral to get a $500,000 line of bank credit.
Since then, Endeavor has grown to an entertainment giant in a series of acquisitions that has taken its business beyond talent representation. Some of its notable acquisitions include UFC and live events company On Location Experiences.
“This is a rare opportunity to create a global live sports and entertainment pureplay build for where the industry is headed,” Emanuel said in a statement. “For decades, Vince and his team have demonstrated an incredible track record of innovation and shareholder value creation, and we are confident that Endeavor can deliver significant additional value for shareholders by bringing UFC and WWE together.”
Times staff writers Stephen Battaglio and Stacy Perman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
