Nick Khan Gives Clarity On Vince McMahon's Plan To Sell WWE
Vince McMahon is back as the Executive Chairman of the WWE Board just months after announcing his retirement due to several disturbing issues resulting in his departure. With his return came the report that the WWE's CEO and Chairman of 40 years came back intending to sell his company, despite many fearful of McMahon returning to retake over creative and daily decision-making for WWE. To add even more confusion to the situation, Vince's daughter Stephanie stepped down as Co-CEO of the company, a role she took on alongside Nick Khan while he was away, with several other members within the company and board stepping away as well. With Stephanie gone, Khan has taken on the full-time role as CEO of the company and is doing his best to make WWE's intentions of a sale clear.
During a recent interview with "The Bill Simmons Podcast," Khan detailed the WWE sale plans, mentioning that despite the investigation into Vince's hush money payments revealed by the Wall Street Journal and allegations from Rita Chatterton, everyone in the company is "plowing ahead." The current CEO of WWE said they have to move forward because "in all of these businesses there's never a clean clear path" and you always deal with some type of hurdle or issue in the way that you have to get around. In terms of whether or not Khan believes more will come of the allegations against Vince, he stated that whatever happened "happened" and Vince has been very honest throughout this entire process and didn't cover anything up.
"I think he's ready [to sell], I can't describe it as anything more than that after the last five months," Khan said. "Keep in mind, again, you engaged in empire building, at a certain point it's like how much more of this empire am I going to build? We continue to build it, and he continued to build it until he stepped down five months or so ago."
Vince McMahon staying with WWE after a sale is reportedly in play
Continuing his plea for the interest in WWE to skyrocket among interested parties, Khan stated how attractive WWE can be in owning 99% of its intellectual property including its media rights and a library full of content. The CEO of WWE also believes with the impending media rights deal coming up in October 2024, the timing is now for the company to sell.
In talking about the media rights, did state that WWE started the sale process now with the plan that the new owner of WWE discusses their media rights deal following the purchase of WWE unless it ends up being one of the "media conglomerates buying it directly." With rumors of a sale comes many different ideas for what's next with Vince and the company, with some suggesting that Vince could take a UFC and Dana White approach with the sale, staying on in some type of role. In regards to those rumors, Khan said that idea is "in play."
"When he's using the word strategic alternatives, that's not to be cute, it's basically we're looking at everything," Khan said. "A lot of it will come down to price but I don't think all of it. It's what's the best value for the shareholder and certainly what's the best value for Vince after the shareholder."
Closing out the conversation, Khan said all options are on the table, including ESPN being a potential landing spot for the media rights of the WWE. In describing why Khan said the WWE has an audience overlap of 10% with the UFC and could provide more subscriptions to their network. Khan said in the past, WWE has had conversations with ESPN about WWE rights.