Saudi Arabia and Endeavor, the parent company of UFC, are thought to be the top candidates to buy WWE.
Since taking over as the executive chairman of the WWE Board of Directors last month, Vince McMahon has been investigating the prospect of a sale. According to earlier reports, McMahon wants $9 billion for the business.
When asked about it during Tuesday’s Endeavor fourth-quarter earnings call, CEO Ari Emanuel said they were not going to do anything that would change their leverage position for the time being, raising doubts about their ability to acquire WWE.
AEW President Tony Khan has been mentioned as a potential bidder. Dave Meltzer mentioned Khan purchasing WWE as a possibility while speaking on Wrestling Observer Radio, but he would need partners to make it happen.
“The only person who could talk about it would be Tony Khan tomorrow, which I would suppose is very possible if someone would bring that up,” Meltzer stated. “Don’t know, but I mean, he has expressed interest, but for him to get it, he’d have to take in a lot of partners to get it, which is not out of the realm of possibility. They could put together a giant deal. But aside from that, the Saudis and the Khan family, nobody else has publicly expressed interest in buying it, and the price is in theory the price is very high, they threw that $9 billion figure out. Unless the Saudis have pretty much agreed to go with 9 billion, which is a very highly inflated figure that I don’t think anybody else would meet, then that’s probably where it’s gonna go. I mean, if it wasn’t for them, the figure would not be that high. But with them, the money is not as much of a deal as it is with other people trying to get a fair value for it.”
Meltzer continued, “They’re looking for something completely different, it’s a completely different animal, and they do want it. For all the talk, it doesn’t appear that any of the media companies are looking for it. I guess we will see. Kind of like NBCUniversal on MSNBC, one of the reporters went out there and basically said they weren’t interested. At that price, I can see why.”
(h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
