Earlier this month, Vince McMahon sold his company to Endeavor Group Holdings Inc. In a press release, Endeavor announced that they will form a company worth $21 billion by merging WWE & UFC.
The new company hasn’t been named yet. Ariel Emanual will be the CEO of the new company and Vince McMahon will be the Executive Chairman.
WWE and UFC merger will affect many employees who work for both companies. Recently, Endeavor’s COO, Mark Shapiro stated in an interview that mass layoffs are imminent.
On Lightshed Live, WWE CEO & President Nick Khan stated that the company expects to save $50 million by laying off employees. However, the WWE management has no plans to release on-screen superstars.
“If you look at what Endeavor was able to take out, cost-wise, from UFC in 2016 or shortly after that deal was done, we have the same expectation here. We think 50 (million) is a really conservative number. We have integration teams now, we’re going to get those in shape, I think we’ll have a better sense of it in a month or two. We’re going to be pretty aggressive with them to make sure that, for our shareholders and for our company, our organization is as lean and mean as possible, and we’re going to rely on the Endeavor flywheel to make up the rest. The most important thing is to leave the product untouched. Untouched, meaning, if Triple H and Kevin Dunn want to evolve it, great, but in terms of cutbacks there, that’s not what we’re looking to do.”
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