TKO CEO Ari Emanuel said “there’s plenty of interest in Raw” while appearing at Bloomberg’s Screentime conference.
After USA Network secured the rights for Smackdown from 2024 from FOX, news came out that NBCUniversal would not be bidding for RAW or NXT, leaving both shows without a new home so far. The news was not welcomed by Wall Street either and TKO stock took a nose dive.
“I know people are like, ‘NBC is out of the mix’ and that’s why it went down. I think there’s three things that happened,” explained Khan. “One, the reason the stock is down is they thought Smackdown was the best package. I saw 40 percent increase which was in line with expectations. Two, the PFL situation. And three, probably Vince, in our deal, wanted to be able to put at any point in time, his stock. He’s 78 years old. He’s been working at this for decades and decades so, I think those three back-to-back issues.”
Emanuel is confident that WWE TV will still get a significant increase and along with UFC and NBA, they are the three big rights up for grabs right now.
He said that no one can undervalue the WWE and UFC because they do not have a season and they’re flexible when it comes to airing on different nights.
“Our fans are loyal, they stick around and they move,” Emanuel continued.
TKO will hold their Q3 2023 financial results on November 7.
