WWE and UFC’s future(s) discussed by Ari Emanuel.
Heading up Endeavor and TKO as CEO is Ari Emanuel. The TKO Group Holdings umbrella houses both WWE and UFC.
Starting in January 2025, WWE’s Monday Night Raw program will begin streaming exclusively on Netflix as a part of a 10-year deal, which includes an option to extend an additional 10 years or opt out after five. Emanuel spoke to Bloomberg’s Emily Chang about the move.
You can see that Netflix wants to be in the live sports business — in live period. I think they will perform very well for them. There’s a huge chunk of the audience that are WWE fans that are, not right now, based on our research, Netflix subscribers and if they capture a portion of those, it’s a huge win for them and a huge win for us.
In 2025, UFC’s five-year, $1.5 billion media rights agreement with ESPN will be up. Emanuel was asked if UFC will be headed to Netflix when the deal is up. He expressed that they’d love to remain with ESPN.
No, no (Emanuel responded when asked if UFC is coming to Netflix when rights deal with ESPN is up in 2025). Listen, ESPN has been an incredible partner. First quarter, we’ll see — of next year. That’s when we can start. We would love to be back with ESPN. They have been incredible to us. Bob Iger’s been incredible, Jimmy’s been incredible. So we’ll start then and move forward from there.
On November 16th, UFC 309 is taking place at Madison Square Garden. The event is being headlined by Stipe Miocic fighting the returning Jon Jones with the UFC Heavyweight Championship on the line.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Bloomberg with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.