Vince McMahon Is Selling WWE For An Insane Price
Vince McMahon has returned to the WWE and wants to sell the company for $9 billion.
Wrestling is arguably hotter now than ever before, but as usual, there is more drama happening when the cameras aren’t rolling than drama happening in the ring. For example, Vince McMahon last year said that he’d be retiring from the WWE that he founded and once chaired in the midst of investigations into his alleged sexual misconduct. But last month, McMahon (who never lost the majority of shareholder voting power in the organization) returned as the executive chairman, and now Bloomberg is reporting that McMahon wishes to sell the WWE for a cool $9 billion.
If that number seems a bit high, that’s because it is. While Vince McMahon undoubtedly has major dollar signs in his eyes right now, the WWE is currently only valued at $6.65 billion. Put that way, this scandalous chairman is hoping that somebody will pay nearly 150% of what the WWE is actually worth.
It’s possible that Vince McMahon feels that somebody will pay this much for the WWE for the simple fact that multiple potential buyers have expressed an interest in acquiring the organization. We don’t know who these would-be buyers are or how much they offered, but it seems like McMahon is gambling on good, old-fashioned capitalism to secure the bag. In this case, the fact that multiple potential buyers are floating offers means that certain people see the potential long-term value of the WWE, and McMahon has set a price that he considers fair.
However, there is a serious chance that Vince McMahon just galaxy-brained himself out of successfully selling the WWE. For example, it was already doubtful that any traditional networks would want to acquire the WWE at almost any price, and the staggering $9 billion price tag has definitively made the wrestling organization too expensive for such networks. And while Bloomberg pointed out at least two potential buyers, one of those buyers is likely to embroil the WWE in even more drama than usual.
The original article claims that both Endeavor Group Holdings Inc. and The Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund were interested in reaching a deal with Vince McMahon for the WWE. Endeavor is only valued at $10.4 billion, so they’d likely need to team up with someone else to pony up all that cash that McMahon is demanding. Meanwhile, The Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund is valued at $620 billion and could easily buy the WWE (just as easily as they invested in companies ranging from Disney and Facebook to Amazon and Nintendo), but this may fan the ongoing controversies stemming from the WWE performing in Saudi Arabia, where its female stars are unable to even perform due to the country’s policies concerning women.
While only time will tell whether Vince McMahon is going to successfully sell the WWE for $9 billion, it’s likelier to happen than you may think. Previously, Tony Khan, president of the rival wrestling organization AEW, had expressed an interest in buying out the competition. If that should end up happening, we’ll likely hear wrestling fans argue over whether McMahon or Khan had the better heel turn with the same intensity as Star Wars fans arguing over which movie or series ultimately ruined that franchise.
