Endeavor boss Ari Emanuel believes Vince McMahon played a role in a recent stock price hit suffered by the TKO Group.
It was announced in September that WWE SmackDown would be leaving FOX in October 2024 and moving to the USA Network, which is owned by NBC Universal. The five-year deal is said to be worth a staggering $1.4 billion.
USA is currently the home of Monday Night Raw and NXT.
Appearing at Bloomberg’s Screentime conference, Ari Emanuel discussed the deal, revealing that the domestic rights for the WWE Network are up in 2026.
“We got a 40 percent increase for SmackDown. We have Raw which is the number one package available. There’s three rights coming available to market. Three big rights: WWE Raw, UFC, NBA. We are involved in two of them. There’s six buyers, plus I would say WWE Network which is up in ‘26. I think I’m saying that — maybe ‘25, ‘26.
So, you cannot undervalue the WWE and UFC for the following reasons: One, we do not have a season. One of the biggest issues that will happen with s-mods and networks is churn. We’re 52 weeks a year, right? And we’re flexible. You want us Thursday night? You want us Tuesday night? I don’t have any of those scheduling issues and that churn issue because we’re the full year.
It’s so much different than any other sport because then people churn out. That’s one of the issues with sports. Not in a bad way… and then the package is over and then you leave. We do not have that. Our fans are loyal, they stick around and they move.”
Despite the huge deal, the stock price for the TKO Group — which includes WWE — actually fell when the news was made public. There were reports that Wall Street had expected an even bigger increase in rights fees.
For his part, Emanuel said there were three main factors at play, and one of them was Vince McMahon.
“I would say to you there’s plenty of interest in Raw, right now. I know people are like, ‘NBC is out of the mix’ and that’s why it went down. I think there’s three things that happened.
One, the reason the stock is down is they thought Raw was the best package. I saw 40 percent increase which was in line with expectations… Two, the P.F.L. situation and three, probably Vince (McMahon) in our deal, wanted to be able to put, at any point in time, his stock. He’s 78 years old. He’s been working at this for decades and decades so, I think those three back-to-back issues…”
Tony Khan Takes Shot At Vince McMahon
On October 10th, AEW Dynamite and NXT went head-to-head.
As fans went back and forth on social media ahead of the shows, Tony Khan took the chance to take a shot at Vince McMahon. When one poster said they wouldn’t be watching, the AEW boss replied with a “who gives a f*ck” gif of Roderick Strong, and “Ok, we won’t see you tomorrow night for Title Tuesday #AEWDynamite then!”
This caused another user to jump in, writing “If Sir Vince McMahon said this, there would be many failed AEW fans crying non-stop and furious. 😭😭😭 #Hypocrites.”
Upping the ante even further, Khan shot back “If Sir Vince McMahon said this, it would be the least of his alleged misdeeds.”
The “alleged misdeeds” refer to the sexual misconduct scandal that caused McMahon to ‘retire’ in July 2022.