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It has been a busy and pretty disruptive few months for World Wrestling Entertainment – known since 2011 simply as WWE – and their innovative and hugely successful co-founder, Vince McMahon.
Wrestling fans will well remember the deal struck in April 2023 that saw WWE merge with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) that saw the formation of TKO Group Holdings, who then went public on the New York Stock Exchange. At this moment in time most eyes are on the upcoming WrestleMania 40 and WWE Betting Sites will be full of odds for those avid fans who like to have a small flutter on their entertainment.
This week we had confirmation that 78 year old McMahon had now pocketed an incredibly large fee after agreeing the sale of nearly 5.4 million shares that he held in the umbrella company TKO.
It is reported that this deal leaves him with around 15 million of shares in the company, representing about a remaining nine per cent ownership stake.
Back in January he had resigned from his position as Executive Chairman of TKO following further allegations of sex trafficking, and whilst vehemently denying those allegations, having been the boss of WWE for a number of decades, previous sexual misconduct allegations had forced him to initially retire from the company back in July 2022 – before he resumed his role soon after.
Reports claim that according a notice filed to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission on March 4th, McMahon had sold just over one quarter of the shares he held in TKO for a sum of around, or just shy $412 million.
The reason for this second sudden, and somewhat unexpected share sale dump, has not been confirmed but many in the media will speculate that it has been driven by the allegations he faces and the potential legal battles that lie ahead for him. That may not necessarily be true though, as back in November McMahon also off loaded 8.4 million shares, netting him around the $700 million mark.
He has after all previously gone on record as describing Ms Grant’s lawsuit as being ‘replete with lies’ and ‘obscene made up instances’, further stating that he will ‘vigorously defend’ himself and that he looked forward to clearing his name from the ‘baseless accusations’ that are a ‘vindictive distortion of the truth’.
Khadeeja Safdar of the Wall Street Journal had previously reported that Grant had admitted to signing a nondisclosure agreement back in 2022 to remain silent about the allegations in return for $3 million, but she claims the payments stopped following the initial $1 million, so she is now seeking to void the agreement and sue for unspecified damages.
Speaking at the March 6 technology, media and telecom conference in San Francisco, hosted by Wall Street firm Morgan Stanley, TKO President Mark Shapiro again took the chance to distance the company from McMahon, and he raised the recent share sale to reinforce the point that the former co-founder was gone for good, and would not be returning to the company in any capacity in the more distant future.
As things stand, whilst McMahon did manage to make an unexpected comeback in previous years, it does feel like his WWE and TKO journey is well and truly over for good now – even if he does clear his name, given his on record confidence of doing just that.
Despite the more unsavoury headlines in recent months, WWE, UFC and TKO continue to forge forward on multiple fronts as they continue to grow their reach, attract new supporters and further grow their own revenues. World wide fans will definitely have welcomed January’s news that from January 2025 and moving forwards, WWE ‘Raw’ had found itself a new home on streaming service Netflix, which would mark a split from linear television for the first time since its inception 31 years ago. The flagship weekly programme now had an exclusive home for US, Canada, UK, and Latin America markets, and other territories, additional countries and regions would be added over time.
The Raw agreement also sees Netflix now host all WWE shows and specials, including Premium Live Events. This is obviously a major game changer for the world market and WWE’s over all reach and accessibility.
WWE will certainly continue to get good headlines across the year of 2024, especially with the much anticipated second return from The Rock at WrestleMania 40, following his shock appearance on the 2/2 episode of SmackDown.
