Nick Khan On WWE Being “Open For Business”
WWE President and Chief Revenue Officer Nick Khan spoke out about WWE being “open for business”, and also commented on whether there are plans to sell the company.
Speaking to Ariel Helwani of BT Sport, Nick Khan went into more detail about what it means for WWE to be “open for business”, saying that the company is open to talking to anyone credible about potential business opportunities.
“When I say we’re open for business, that means if someone credible calls on anything, NFT, trading cards, international rights, we take the call. We’re inherently salespeople, meaning we’re not sort of like, ‘No, we don’t want to talk to this company because we think they’re X’. If you call and you want to pick up something and you’re credible, we’re going to hear the pitch. But we’re an entrepreneurial company that Vince and others built over the last thirty-five years or so. And we always want to stay fresh and entrepreneurial in our minds.”
Khan went on to explain that this mentality extends as far as listening to offers regarding the potential sale of the company, although he also made clear that this isn’t something they are actively pursuing or discussing internally. Instead, they are focused on growing the value of the company.
“When I say open for business, if somebody calls credible, asking, hey, are you guys for sale, it’s what do you what’s your offer? What do you think? And we’re not trying to sell it. That’s not our intent. There are no internal meetings about selling this company, the internal meetings about growing it and the ability that we think we collectively have to tremendously grow what the value of the company is now.”
This wasn’t the first time Khan had been asked about a potential sale of WWE.
Back in February 2021, when WWE announced the deal that saw the WWE Network moving to Peacock in the US, speculation was rife that the digital channel’s parent company, NBC Universal, would make a bid to acquire WWE in its entirety. However, Khan squashed the rumour when he told Forbes that there had been “no dialogue internally or externally on anything like that”.
Nick Khan clarifies the 'open for business' line.
"If you call and pitch and are creditable, we'll hear the pitch."
"We're not trying to sell. There are no internal meetings about selling this company."
The full chat with @arielhelwani drops Sunday 👀 pic.twitter.com/T11k5f3YTN
— WWE on TNT Sports (@wweontnt) August 21, 2021
If you use any of the above quotes, please give a H/T and link back to Inside The Ropes