Yesterday, Vince McMahon who is the majority stockholder of WWE removed Alan Wexler, JoEllen Lyons Dillon, and Jeffrey Speed from the board. McMahon then put himself, Michelle Wilson, and George Barrios on the board. As a result, Ignace Lahoud and Man Jit Singh resigned from their positions on the board of directors.
The 77-year-old returned to the company to participate in upcoming media rights negotiations as well as looking to sell the company. Also, there are so many people willing to buy World Wrestling Entertainment.
Front Office Sport reported that Saudi Arabia is the top bidder if the company sells. Saudi Arabian public investment fund currently holds $620 Billion in assets. Therefore, buying WWE could be a huge step in its global sports expansion.
“Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is emerging as a possible bidder for WWE if the promotion puts itself up for sale, sources told Front Office Sports.
PIF controls about $620 billion in assets. Vince McMahon’s sports entertainment company could be the next possible step in its global sports expansion.”
A few hours before SmackDown, Stephanie McMahon, Frank Riddick, and Nick Khan arranged a meeting to discuss Vince McMahon’s return. In the meeting, the Co-CEO of WWE Nick Khan talked about a potential sale.
Here’s an excerpt of the meeting thanks to Wrestlenomics.
“Stephanie McMahon: Thanks, Frank. And then, Nick, how does that work as it’s tied to media rights and why is that a great strategic opportunity for us?
Nick Khan (WWE Co-CEO): Thanks, Steph, so these things work hand-in-hand with one another. For example, since our U.S. media rights are up in October of ‘24, for any conglomerate — so think Disney, Comcast, Netflix, etcetera — any conglomerate that might be interested in WWE would be interested in purchasing the company outright. They very well may be interested in doing a media rights deal, but obviously, we couldn’t do a media rights deal, let’s say, with Comcast and then go sell to Disney.
Those sort of companies would want to make some sort of acquisition prior to those media rights being up. So the timing is spot on for that. In terms of the day-to-day of the company, nothing is changing. Steph is in her role, I’m in my role, Frank’s in his role, Paul is in his role, Kevin Dunn is in his role. And we would ask everyone to stay focused on the business as hand [sic]. We’re going to engage in this process. We’re going to look at it with open eyes and open hearts. We’re going to ultimately see what’s out there. And Vince will make his decision, as Frank said, as the controlling shareholder, as to what he wants to do with the company. For now, let’s focus on business as hand, if we could.”
We will update you when we receive more details. Stay tuned with The Spotlight.
