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The Town with Matthew Belloni

A WWE and UFC Tag Team, With Endeavor’s Mark Shapiro

The Town with Matthew Belloni

The Ringer

Society & Culture

4.3847 Ratings

🗓️ 12 September 2023

⏱️ 30 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Matt is joined by Mark Shapiro, the president of Endeavor and now TKO, the newly formed sports and entertainment company merging WWE and UFC. They discuss the details behind the deal, what this means for Dana White and Vince McMahon, who gains the most from this merger, the upcoming rights deals for both sports, and how people will be able to watch in the future. Mark also gives his take on the recent CAA sale, as well as on how his agency, WME, is faring during the strike. Matt finishes the show with a prediction about the return of Drew Barrymore’s talk show. For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, ‘What I’m Hearing ...,’ click here. Email us your thoughts! [email protected] Host: Matt Belloni Guest: Mark Shapiro Producers: Craig Horlbeck and Jessie Lopez Theme Song: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

For all your fantasy football needs, check out the ringer fantasy football show with me, Danny Highfetz, and Craig Horlebeck.

0:07.9

That's the ringer fantasy football show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast.

0:14.3

It is Tuesday, September 12th. I've never been a big follower of UFC or the WWE, but I've always respected both of them as entertainment businesses.

0:24.1

I actually went to a WW RAW event this summer with my kid.

0:28.1

Thanks to the WWE communications team, we sat in the front row, which was completely hilarious and kind of scared the crap out of my 7-year-old.

0:36.2

But you can see the incredible

0:37.9

passion of the fans of WWE. Producer Craig is super into it too. As of today, Craig, you can buy

0:43.9

stock in one company and own pieces of both the UFC, the mixed martial arts league, and

0:50.4

WWE, the pro wrestling outfit. They're called TKO, which is 51% controlled by Endeavor,

0:57.3

which owns the talent agency, WME, the IMG sports licensing business,

1:01.8

professional bull riders, and a bunch of other companies.

1:04.8

WWE shareholders own the other 49% of TKO.

1:08.9

I know a lot of acronyms here again.

1:13.5

And the Endeavor CEO, Ari Emanuel,manuel said in April when the deal was announced that the whole thing has an enterprise value of more than $21 billion.

1:19.1

We'll see what the market says about that. The two leagues, and obviously we put league and air

1:24.2

quotes here for WWE, they air 350 events a year in 180 different countries.

1:30.4

So this is a pretty big asset, especially with new broadcast rights deals coming up for both of them.

1:35.6

Given how valuable sports rights are in the TV and streaming ecosystem, both are expected to

1:40.5

generate big increases depending on how they carve up these rights, though they're

1:44.4

dealing with the stuff that we talk about a lot on this show, how to manage cord cutting,

1:48.1

challenges that traditional entertainment companies are having in streaming, the labor

1:52.0

strikes, all of it. So it's a good time to have Mark Shapiro back on the show. As of today,

...

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