Nick Khan comments on upcoming TV rights negotiations for WWE.
During WrestleMania 39 weekend, the sale was officially announced as Vince had accepted an offer from Endeavor of 21 billion dollars for the company. Now, the merger with the UFC to form a new company, TKO Group has finalized as the company will now start trading on the stock market.
Speaking to the Sports Business Journal, WWE CEO Nick Khan said he expects to start pushing on negotiations as football season is underway.
“You’ve seen bidding wars between Comcast and Disney on things like the Fox assets, which ultimately went to Disney, and Sky, which ultimately went to Comcast,” Khan said. “It does make one wonder how this might look down the road as both companies and as TKO enters into these negotiations. We think ratings, relevancy and revenue for both properties are off the charts, and, of course, we always want to grow that.”
Nick Khan
Despite it looking likely RAW and NXT will end up remaining on USA, albeit with a more lucrative payout for WWE, SmackDown’s landing spot is anything but certain at the time of this writing.
The Friday night show currently resides on FOX, but the exclusive negotiating period for FOX has ended and now, WWE will be fielding offers from all major networks and streaming services.
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