Years of WWE saying it is “open for business” are coming to fruition. January kicked off with the return of Vince McMahon to the company’s board of directors, a move made by the long-time WWE Chairman due to his desire to help assist with a potential sale. McMahon has insisted that his return to power is strictly business, as he has no intentions to interfere with WWE’s current management team. While WWE’s on-screen creative is seemingly staying the same, the company is set for a significant shift behind the scenes if a sale actually materializes.
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When sale reports initially broke, laundry lists of potential buyers made their way to social media. That said, those suitors were based off of the fact that they could afford the purchase and did not necessarily reflect whether they would have genuine interest in buying WWE. Interest levels remain to be seen, but industry analyzers have whittled down the possible options.
Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics speculated that Comcast, Endeavor, and Amazon are the “most likely acquirers” of WWE if a sale is to go through.ย
While those three suitors are titans in the entertainment industry, a name notably absent is Disney. There is little doubt that the house of mouse could afford WWE’s billion-dollar price tag, but Thurston questioned whether WWE and Disney would be a good match.
“Wrestling is a strange business, and you need people who have the expertise to know how to manage it,” Thurston toldย Westfair Online. “There are a lot of examples throughout history of wrestling companies being overseen by larger parent companies that didn’t have a great idea of how to manage them. A great example of that is WCW, when it was overseen by Ted Turner’s company, and that went out of business.”
Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which has been a long-running partner of WWE. Monday Night Raw has called NBC’s USA Network its home for decades, both WWE SmackDown and WWE NXT have had broadcasts on NBC-owned channels before, and the entire WWE tape library currently lives on NBC’s Peacock.
Amazon is also an industry giant, but it has limited history with WWE. That said, the success of NFL Thursday Night Football and Premiere League soccer games on the company’s Prime Video streaming service could increases Jeff Bezos’s appetite for more live sports.
Endeavor is no stranger to combat sports, as it already owns the UFC in its entirety. It holds an enterprise value of just around $11 billion, which hurts its bidding chances against media superpowers, but its familiarity with fight-based companies make Endeavor a strong suitor for WWE.
Stay tuned to ComicBook.com for updates on WWE’s possible sale.
