It’s been a big year for WWE as Vince McMahon returned to the company back in January, and it was announced a few months later that WWE would be sold to Endeavor. The deal with Endeavor closed in September and now new opportunities for WWE to generate revenue are being explored.
During the third quarter TKO earnings call Endeavor and TKO CEO Ari Emanuel talked about using the ring to increase sponsorship revenue and he noted that Vince McMahon is very open to the idea.
“Vince [Vince McMahon] has been very open….before he was clean in the ring and around. He is now very open to increasing the inventory that we can work with like we increased the inventory at the UFC, very happy about that and we think there are huge opportunities around the stadium. That’s a good sign.
We are starting, in some territories, looking at a Friday night, Saturday night, and Monday night for both WWE, UFC, and WWE again. That will give us an indication of our ability to put that on. Once we can prove that model, I think we can take it globally and move it domestically pretty easily. I’ll re-emphasize that there is a ton of inventory now that Vince and the team are opening up at the WWE for us.”
WWE seemingly embraced more sponsorship opportunities this year with the Mountain Dew Pitch Black match and the Slim Jim Battle Royal at SummerSlam, so it will be interesting to see what type of sponsors could potentially end up with their logo on a WWE ring.
