President of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. Vince McMahon makes an in-ring appearance through the WWE Monday Night Raw show on the Thomas & Mack Center on August 24, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
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Worldwide wrestling entertainment and UFC Endeavor announced last month that they’d be merging later this yr. We now know the name of the combined company.
The latest operation will be called TKO Group Holdings, a spokesperson for Endeavor confirmed on Tuesday. How previously announced, will be listed on the Latest York Stock Exchange under the ticker TKO. The name is a reference to the skilled fighting term “technical knockout”.
With the deal, Endeavor and WWE hope to create a sports entertainment giant value over $20 billion.
Endeavor’s CEO Ari Emanuel will also be CEO of TKO Group, while Vince McMahon, WWE’s controlling shareholder and longtime boss, will function executive chairman of the brand new company. Endeavor will own 51% of the shares, while WWE shareholders will receive the remaining 49%.
Emanuel said he intends to run “the identical manual” with WWE as Endeavor with the UFC, whose revenue grew 20% between 2021 and 2022.
“We now have a track record of media rights,” Emanuel said last month. “WWE has an analogous scale to the UFC. In an asset universe of this magnitude, opportunity is rare and finite.”
The transaction is to be finalized within the second half of the yr. UFC and WWE will keep their names as a part of TKO Group.
Though WWE is scripted and the UFC offers authentic fights, the 2 organizations have much in common by way of combat sports content and culture.
“It may be UFC 2.0,” Emanuel said in an interview that aired last month on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street.