WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon speaks at a press conference announcing the WWE Network at International CES 2014 in Las Vegas.
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According to people familiar with the matter, All Elite Wrestling, a professional wrestling league owned by the Khan family, is interested in merging with World Wrestling Entertainment.
The Khans, who also own the National Football League’s Jacksonville Jaguars and the Premier League’s Fulham FC, could work with a strategic media company to share intellectual property while they merge the wrestling leagues, people who asked said Not to be named because discussions are private. AEW has a TV broadcast rights agreement with TNT and TBS from Warner Bros. Discovery.
The idea that Vince McMahon, WWE’s majority shareholder, would merge his company with the much smaller AEW is far-fetched. AEW has not held discussions with McMahon or Nick Khan, the company’s chief executive officer, the people said. McMahon can view the sale to the Khans as a non-starter.
The Khans are open to discussing a possible role for McMahon, 77, after a sale but have not had those talks yet, one of the people said. It’s unclear what kind of job McMahon would want after a sale with WWE, but WWE is a much larger and more established organization than AEW. McMahon, who was valued at more than $3 billion as of July, is also known as the primary creative force behind WWE’s storylines.
Sports magnate Shahid Khan, 72, is ranked 292nd on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a net worth of $7.56 billion. He also owns auto parts maker Flex-N-Gate.
Shahid Khan, the new owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars.
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The WWE sales process
