TKO merges UFC and WWE sponsorship teams into one entity

In September, UFC mum or dad firm Endeavor closed a deal that merged the UFC and WWE below one company entity, TKO Group Holdings, Inc. And whereas we received’t see Israel Adesanya within the WWE ring or Cody Rhodes moving into the Octagon in consequence, there’s quite a lot of motion and adjustments happening behind the scenes.

To this point it’s the WWE that’s been compelled to cope with these adjustments. After Vince McMahon was blamed for TKO’s poor stock performance, the longtime wrestling magnate was forcibly faraway from artistic management of WWE’s tv product by Endeavor head Ari Emanuel. Over 100 WWE workers have been laid off in September with extra rounds of layoffs anticipated.

Now TKO is announcing that the UFC and TKO sponsorship groups are merging, with UFC’s Grant Norris-Jones taking on as high canine.

“Since Endeavor acquired UFC in 2016, UFC’s international partnerships enterprise has change into a big progress space,” TKO’s CFO Andrew Schleimer mentioned in a press launch. “And we imagine WWE’s partnerships enterprise has comparable potential. Collectively, UFC and WWE create a sports activities advertising powerhouse, with a whole bunch of dwell occasions per 12 months and a attain that’s equal to, or higher than, the world’s greatest sports activities properties.”

“The newly built-in international partnerships crew will provide premium manufacturers the chance to combine and activate inside UFC’s and WWE’s terribly fashionable content material to have interaction their huge fan bases around the globe.”

Endeavor definitely put UFC’s sponsorship deal program on steroids. Lengthy gone are the times of Condom Depot. Manscaped should still be round, however they’re shelling out ‘low seven figures annually’ for the privilege. Yearly the UFC sponsorship crew posts insane progress within the 20 – 30% vary.

In the meantime, the WWE has pulled some blue chip sponsors through the years however are type of old-school with their deployment. Ol’ Vince has at all times thought-about the squared circle to be sacrosanct — no adverts within the wrestling ring! We’ve got a sense that’s going to alter fairly shortly as we begin to see Endeavor’s (and the UFC’s) fingerprints over the WWE product in 2024.