The 77-year-old was not only CEO of the WWE, he was also repeatedly in front of the camera for his company – as a villain.
(Photo: AP)
Dusseldorf Vincent Kennedy McMahon, known as “Vince”, loves to play the bad guy. For decades, the now 77-year-old family patriarch has ruled as CEO of the listed media group World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE). The business model: well-trained men and women stage acrobatic show fights, driven by simple stories of the good versus the bad. And McMahon often right in the middle.
In 2022, however, revelations from The Wall Street Journal ended his 40 years at the helm of the family-run company. The Trump friend, who was considered authoritarian, had actually become the villain. The newspaper brought several suspected cases of misconduct to the public: sexual harassment at work, affairs, hush money payments in the millions. Under continued pressure, McMahon retired as chairman and CEO in July 2022. However, without an admission of guilt and still as the largest shareholder.
Now the show fight promoter is back in the operative business, according to a message from Friday. And that, as it is said, against the will of the company, which he himself had formed into a muscle group with a recent turnover of 1.2 billion dollars worldwide.
The background are concrete plans to sell WWE in the near future. According to the business channel CNBC, the US investment bank JP Morgan has now been commissioned to explore interested parties and initiate a deal.
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Various media groups are considered potential buyers, above all the broadcasting group Comcast, and Disney is also being discussed. Above all, there should be good personal contacts with the entertainment giant. Even the Netflix streaming service is vaguely associated with a purchase.
Your own daughter is now CEO – and against returning
As a value, WWE can primarily offer decades of television material streamed over the net. This was initially done via its own service, which was transferred to Comcast’s offering a few years ago. The long-term TV contracts for the live shows “Raw” and “Smackdown” are also considered very lucrative and will be renegotiated in the summer.
According to the Wall Street Journal, McMahon, whose private fortune is estimated at $2.8 billion, had already expressed in a letter to the board of directors in December that he wanted to get back into business with a view to selling it. Accordingly, the remaining board members were unanimous against – including Stephanie McMahon, who had taken over the post as CEO from her father, and her husband Paul Levesque, himself a former wrestler.
The markets welcomed the villain’s return. In Friday trading, WWE Corporation stock was up almost 17 percent to close at $84.27, its highest level in more than a year. There is also a plus at the start of the week. The group’s market capitalization rose to more than six billion dollars. CNBC cites sources within the company as saying it has a sales scenario in the next three to six months.
It is unclear what the operational impact of the return will be. Internal notes of the conversation were made public, according to which Stephanie McMahon, who remains in office as CEO, has at least assured the athletes that nothing will change for them. In the past, the desire to make WWE more cost-effective for a takeover has always resulted in waves of layoffs.
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