World Wrestling Entertainment Chairman Vince McMahon appears in the ring during WWE’s Monday Night Raw at the Thomas & Mack Center on August 24, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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world wrestling entertainment The UFC and Endeavor announced last month that they will merge later this year. Now we know the name of the combined company.
New business will be called TKO Group Holdings, spokesman says effort confirmed Tuesday.as previously announced, which will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TKO. The name is a reference to the professional fighting term “technical knockout”.
With the deal, Endeavor and WWE hope to create a sports entertainment powerhouse worth more than $20 billion.
Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel will also serve as CEO of TKO Group, while WWE controlling shareholder and longtime owner Vince McMahon will serve as executive chairman of the new company. Endeavor will own 51 percent, while WWE shareholders will get the remaining 49 percent.
Emanuel has said he intends to run “the same playbook” in WWE as Endeavor did in the UFC, whose revenue has soared 20 percent from 2021 to 2022.
“We have a successful track record in media rights,” Emanuel said last month. “WWE is similar in size to UFC. In a world of assets of this size, opportunities are rare and limited.”
The transaction is scheduled to close in the second half of this year.
Even though WWE is scripted and UFC features real fights, the two organizations have a lot in common when it comes to combat sports content and culture.
“It’s going to be UFC 2.0,” Emanuel said in an interview that aired last month on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.”
