When the UFC and WWE merged beneath the TKO Group banner in September 2023, not many knew precisely what to anticipate — together with Dana White.
It was confirmed final 12 months that the 2 sports activities leisure entities had been to mix as a part of a majority-owned subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings in a historic deal which linked the businesses beneath a single umbrella, resulting in fast hypothesis as to what affect — if any — this may need on every companies product.
To this point at the very least, the affect has been minimal from a customer-facing perspective: some UFC fighters have appeared at WWE occasions, whereas a WWE occasion was additionally held contained in the UFC’s Apex facility outdoors of Las Vegas.
And in a current interview with the Sports activities Enterprise Journal, as famous by Bloody Elbow, UFC boss Dana White admitted that he was initially sceptical of the deal.
“Yeah, since we kicked off the entire TKO factor, it’s been nice,” White mentioned. “The synergies are mainly between I’d say extra, the sponsorship and manufacturing, how we discovered with each firms to streamline a few of the bills we had after we had been separate.
“You’ll be able to see the inventory within the final three days has gone up like, 10 or $11, so it’s on hearth proper now, it’s been an excellent expertise. I wasn’t very enthusiastic about going right into a public firm, it doesn’t appear very enjoyable to me, nevertheless it’s been alright. I do what I do, they do what they do over within the WWE.”
The TKO Group share worth is $135.77 on the time of writing, up from round $115 this time final month.
Moreover, White mentioned that the partnership ended what was in impact a longstanding rivalry between the 2 firms: “Now we have a very good working relationship between us and the WWE, which we didn’t have earlier than TKO.”
