WWE: What a Sale Would Mean for Wrestling and Fans

News broke today that several talent in WWE were released by the company, as reported by Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful, adding fuel to the speculation that WWE might be sold in the near future.

Without question, there is only one promotion in the world that has stood as the leader of professional wrestling for over 20 years. Ever since WCW went out of business and was purchased by Vince McMahon’s then World Wrestling Federation (now WWE), wrestling has only had one undisputed biggest promotion.

Recent years have seen the emergence of several promotions to challenge the WWE. TNA was the first, and continues to thrive today, while AEW is the most recent and is certainly gaining on the WWE. Others, like New Japan Pro Wrestling have grown in prominence outside North America. Still, the WWE is the biggest promotion in the industry where many talent hope to end up working, whether to chase money or a childhood dream. WWE still stands above the rest in terms of its sheer size.

Recent moves made by WWE’s CFO, Nick Khan, have led the promotion to even greater profits, making them more money than they ever had before. This included making even more money in the pandemic than they did when they had live crowds, as running live events actually became a loss leader for the company as they declined in popularity in terms of selling tickets.

However, as recent events have shown, selling tickets and decreasing in ratings really hasn’t mattered much with WWE. Most of their TV, barring NXT, is still number 1 in the ratings on Mondays and Fridays, only beaten by large sports leagues such as the MLB, NBA, and NFL. WWE has leveraged this into making several lucrative TV deals. For example, the rights fees contracts, an extremely profitable (though morally dubious) relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the selling of their WWE Network content to NBC’s Peacock have made WWE’s immediate future very secure.

While it can be argued that WWE is less popular than it ever has been (as seen in the decreased ratings and live attendance numbers before the pandemic), WWE is still easily the most valuable property in professional wrestling and does hold value to anyone that would be interested in buying them in the TV landscape.

The moves made by Nick Khan and Vince McMahon in recent months certainly seem to point towards the company preparing to put it on sale and negotiate with the highest bidders, with NBC Universal being an obvious front runner. One of those moves was the release of several production staff and executives removed from the company, as reported by Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer.

The Peacock deal, the layoffs of staff and talent have led to talent themselves speculating that the company may be put up for sale soon. While there are no official indications of intent, and Nick Khan recently stating that Vince McMahon had no intention of selling, the situation surrounding all these moves being made by McMahon and Khan are certainly interesting.

Brandon Thurston has correctly pointed out that selling the company is unlikely with Vince McMahon’s history of being a control freak, but it is possible as a condition of the sale that Vince McMahon still be CEO and in charge of the company indefinitely. Thurston could be correct in his assessment, as the moves being made have clearly maximized profit, and if that is the end goal, then mission accomplished. This could simply be a case of Nick Khan restructuring the company into his image after taking over the role of CFO, rather than indicating that Khan is preparing the company for sale.

However, if a sale is in the works, the story of who ends up owning WWE could very well be the biggest story in the history of the wrestling business. There are many reasons WWE could want to sell, given the potential to make a ton more money for the executives and shareholders involved, and the lure WWE would provide to content producers given its vast library that is being continually added to every single week.

In some ways, a sale could prove to be very good for the business, as it would mean even more money being made by the wrestlers that work for WWE. Ideally, if a TV Network purchases WWE, it’s possible that the WWE wrestlers would actually be designated as actors under the SAG and start to be paid fairly. If that were the case, then the ridiculous independent contractor rules that WWE has might come to an end and the wrestlers will be a part of a union, to their benefit.

One major question that would come out of a sale is about the leadership of the company. Would Vince McMahon still be in charge? My initial thoughts on that are that McMahon would remain CEO of the company as long as he was living. It would be unlikely that a sale would immediately impact the on-air creative or the behind-the-scenes practices done within the WWE.

The UFC is the biggest example of a company the size of WWE being sold for billions of dollars, and experiencing little change in terms of actual presentation on screen. While UFC has become more about what fights sell the most buys rather than pure sport, the company is still largely run the same way, with Dana White being the public face of the company. It certainly hasn’t stopped White from making controversial statements and morally questionable decisions about how the company is run. I see no reason why WWE being sold would mean any change in the short term as long as Vince McMahon is still in charge the decisions would remain the same.

As long as Vince McMahon continues to make moves that make the company more money, while keeping shareholders happy, it’s hard to a see situation where he’s not in control. When it comes down to it, the shareholders will all bow down to the all mighty dollar, and Vince McMahon is very good at positioning the company to drive revenue.

Will WWE be sold to NBC Universal or some other property? Maybe. Is it closer to being sold than it ever has been in its history? Probably. Even if Vince McMahon never sells in his lifetime, the moves he has made certainly have set WWE up to be profitable for a very long time, and that has to be interesting to any investor or potential owner.

Will Vince McMahon strike while the iron is hot and maximize the profit to be made by selling when WWE hits maximum value? Or will he hang on and see the company’s value decline before selling? Will he sell at all, content to hold onto the company until he dies? Time will tell. All we can say for sure is that with Nick Khan’s obvious backing, Vince McMahon is still the king of professional wrestling, and he is unlikely to be dethroned anytime soon.