UFC acquires WWE: How much will it be bought for?

Endeavor, the owner of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), announced on Monday that it will acquire the professional wrestling company WWE with the goal of creating a sports and entertainment giant valued at $21 billion (approximately €19.3 billion).

In a statement, Endeavor indicated that the purchase, scheduled to close in the second half of 2023, will unite the brands Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) under the same umbrella in a single company, which will be named later and also go public.

According to the disclosed details, the resulting company will be controlled by Endeavor (51 %) and the management team will include Ariel Emanuel (Endeavor) as CEO, Vincent McMahon (WWE) as executive chairman, and Mark Shapiro (Endeavor) as president and chief operating officer.

WWE had been looking for a buyer for months and, after a weekend of speculation, the two companies have agreed to "maximize" the value of their "media rights, enhance sponsorship monetization, develop new forms of content, and seek other strategic acquisitions and mergers," the statement said.

Together, in 2022, UFC and WWE had revenues of $2.4 billion and have experienced an annual revenue growth of 10 % since 2019.

Through the agreement, both brands will contribute cash to the resulting company to have "about $150 million," and they expect their synergies to result in cost savings between $50 and $100 million annually.

McMahon, who is the majority owner of WWE, stepped down as CEO of that company last year due to a scandal involving multimillion-dollar payments to multiple women to silence allegations of sexual misconduct spanning decades, but he returned in January to work on the sale process.

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After the news broke, Endeavor's stock fell more than 8 % on Wall Street, where it has a market cap of $16.8 billion and has lost 25 % in the last year. Meanwhile, WWE, which has a market value of $6.8 billion and has gained 40 % in the last year, dropped nearly 4 % today.