We all know the story of how the UFC was bought by talent agency turned global entertainment juggernaut Endeavor in 2016
for a cool $4 billion. Could they end up buying the WWE in the future?
The UFC may be the biggest sports property owned by Endeavor, but they’re far from the only one. Endeavor also owns Professional Bull Riders, Euroleague Basketball, and nine minor league baseball teams. And if recent talk from Endeavor president Mark Shapiro is any indication, maybe some day they’ll own the WWE as well.
In an
appearance on The Town Podcast, Endeavor president Mark Shapiro was asked about buying into the WWE now that former head honcho
Vince McMahon has retired.
“We’ve shown [Wall] Street – and frankly everybody else in the industry that cares – what we can do when you put the UFC on top of the Endeavor platform. There are just all kinds of levers we can flip,” Shapiro said. “When it comes to WWE? That would be something that would be interesting and worth exploring.”
“Would we buy it? Who knows? Last I checked, it wasn’t for sale. We’re interested in anything in the owned sports properties segment.”
WWE is currently listed with a worth of $5.68 billion, and any deal would still have to go through Vince McMahon as
he is still the controlling shareholder in the company. For some reason, we suspect they’d have to pry the company out of his cold dead hands.
It also may not the best time globally to be considering a deal of this size.
“Right now, in this environment, there’s nothing transformative,” Shapiro added. “Because with all the mud that’s out there, and all the headwinds, and all the fear. If you’re running a company like this one that does almost $6 billion in revenue, conserving cash, paying down debt, those have to be big priorities.”
Endeavor made its big $4 billion buy of the UFC by taking out a lot of debt which it will be paying off for years to come. As it stands, the purchase was a smart one: the combat sports company has made the vast majority of the profit when it comes to Endeavor’s sports entertainment portfolio. Given that many of the UFC’s core business tenets copied the WWE model, we’re not surprised that Endeavor would jump at the chance to have a second golden goose under their umbrella.
