World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. Chairman Vince McMahon appears in the ring during the WWE Monday Night Raw show at the Thomas & Mack Center August 24, 2009 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ethan Miller | Getty Images
World Wrestling Entertainment and Endeavor’s UFC announced last month that they would be merging later this year. Now we know the name of the combined company.
The new operation will be called TKO Group Holdings, a spokesman for Make an effort confirmed on Tuesday. As previously announced, it will be traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol TKO. The name is an allusion to the professional battle term “technical knockout”.
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With the deal, Endeavor and WWE hope to create a sports-entertainment giant worth more than $20 billion.
Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel will also serve as CEO of TKO Group, while Vince McMahon, WWE majority shareholder and longtime boss, will serve as Executive Chairman of the new company. Endeavor will own a 51% stake, while WWE shareholders will receive the remaining 49%.
Emanuel said he wants to follow “the same playbook” with WWE as Endeavor did with the UFC, whose revenue grew 20% from 2021-2022.
“We have a track record with media rights,” Emanuel said last month. “WWE is on a similar scale to UFC. In the universe of assets of this magnitude, opportunities are rare and limited.”
The deal is expected to close in the second half of the year. The UFC and WWE will retain their respective names as part of the TKO Group.
Although WWE is scripted and UFC is authentic fights, the two organizations have a lot in common in terms of martial arts content and culture.
“This is going to be UFC 2.0,” Emanuel said in an interview that aired last month on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street.
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