Nick Khan Envisions “All-Star TKO Weekend”
Nick Khan has big plans now WWE and UFC are on the same side.
WWE and UFC are now officially under the auspices of TKO Group following the takeover of the sports entertainment giant by Endeavor.
Speaking on the Bill Simmons podcast new WWE President Nick Khan gave a flavour of what the future might look like for both brands with a suggestion of “all star TKO weekends” to provide the new company the chance to reduce costs and drive revenue:
“The conversations are just beginning now. Everybody wanted to make sure that we got all the regulatory approvals in place. Department of Justice approval, SEC approval, a couple of international approvals that we needed and obviously, we got all of those.
“The conversations are happening now. Yes, what everyone envisions is, can you set up an all-star TKO weekend where SmackDown goes on Friday, UFC on Saturday with pay-per-view, and WWE goes with a premium live event on Sunday. Can you do that from the same city? Certainly, a lot of cost efficiencies there in terms of production, but a lot of revenue efficiencies in terms of upside there as well.”
“Certainly, the fighters and WWE superstars stay separate. Could you have a Ronda Rousey or Brock Lesnar come along who can cross from one to the other? Sure, but that’s a once-in-a-decade type of thing. In terms of production, [UFC Exec VP/Operations & Production] Craig Borsari and [WWE Line Producer] Kevin Dunn, they’ve had a number of conversations on those efficiencies, how it might look, how it might work. Hopefully, we have some news on that in a couple of months.”
Nick Khan still wants government subsidies for live events
Nick Khan continued by explaining how WWE and UFC could work hand in hand and suggested both brands could be available to the highest bidder:
“Ideally, what we like, especially if you look at the international expansion of WWE’s premium live events and UFC’s already expansion, you could see a lot of events of ‘WWE is going at 3pm eastern from an international location, UFC is going at 8 eastern domestically,’ or the opposite of that.
“We like that too because you have two gates, two merchandise, in theory, if you get a government subsidy for the international or domestic show, you have that and boom, both events are right there. By planning in advance, I don’t believe we’ll trip over each other in any way.”
It recently came to light that the Welsh Government paid almost $3 million to WWE for them to come to Cardiff for Clash at the Castle in September 2022. But an economic impact survey found that Wales was the winner with the WWE show bringing ten times that number in economic benefits to the city.