Endeavor’s Ari Emanuel “Concentrating On Saving Costs” With WWE Deal
Ari Emanuel has explained Endeavor’s plans regarding WWE following the massive deal that was announced in April.
On the day after WrestleMania 39, May 3rd, Endeavor announced that they had acquired WWE as part of a $21 billion deal that merges WWE into a powerful sports entity with UFC. The value of WWE in the deal was around $9.5 billion while UFC is about $12 billion.
After the deal was announced, Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel made it clear that he wasn’t going to let WWE Executive Chairman Vince McMahon leave the company. That’s the same Vince McMahon, who retired last July after it was discovered he paid tens of millions of dollars in “hush money payments” due to numerous sexual encounters with women that worked for him over the last 20 years.
During an appearance on CNBC, Ari Emanuel spoke about doing with WWE what they did with UFC, which involves saving costs.
“I represented UFC before we bought it for over 20 years and the same thing’s true with Vince [McMahon]. We have a good relationship…[We will do] what we do with saving some costs, driving some revenue with sponsorship, international sales like we did with UFC, we’re going to do 2.0 with WWE.”
With regard to WWE’s television rights fees for Raw & Smackdown that expire in October 2024, Ari Emanuel again mentioned saving costs while talking about sponsors.
“Right now, we are concentrating on saving some costs, doing sponsorships which they didn’t have, using the same formula we used with UFC in international rights. Their rights are open now or in a year and a half from now. I think [WWE and UFC] are on separate time frames.”
When it comes to closing the deal, Emanuel said matter of factly: “We are waiting on the DOJ.”
It has been previously reported that Endeavor and WWE believe the sale will officially go through at some point later this year.