Vince McMahon Considered Partially Responsible For TKO Group Stock Price Falling
WWE owner Ari Emanuel has explained recent post-SmackDown TV deal stock price drop
Shortly after the recent merger of WWE and UFC under the TKO Group Holdings umbrella, WWE announced a new broadcast deal for SmackDown, a move that interestingly saw stock prices plummet for the sports entertainment behemoth.
The stock market is notoriously volatile, but during an appearance at Bloomberg’s Screentime conference, TKO Group Holdings and parent company Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel gave his take on why the stock price dropped after the announcement:
“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.
“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…” said Emanuel.
H/T: POST Wrestling
