The idea of TKO adding more sports.
Both WWE and UFC are housed under the TKO Group Holdings umbrella. Endeavor/TKO CEO Ari Emanuel did an interview with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang and spoke in-depth about both promotions.
There was a point in the conversation when the idea was brought up of TKO adding more sports to their content portfolio. Here’s how that topic came about:
I remember watching the WWE when I was — WWF actually — when I was young. Paul’s done an amazing job at the WWE, with Raw, SmackDown, PLEs, NXT, and UFC is this sport that Dana (White) created over 30 years ago. Didn’t exist. His vision. It’s now a global sport. You don’t really have to explain the rules of the UFC to anybody in the world, and we’ll grow more sports out of the UFC. I don’t know (what sports specifically). I don’t know the sports that are out there right now that we would do. There’s nothing on the horizon right now. This is enough for us to do right now. If we do what we do — and I think we’re executing really, really well so…
In the same media appearance, Emanuel discussed WWE Raw’s upcoming move to Netflix and the UFC-ESPN media rights deal being up in 2025.
If the quote in this article is used, please credit Bloomberg with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.