If the latest comments from WWE Chairwoman & Co-CEO Stephanie McMahon and Co-CEO Nick Khan are to be believed, WWE is interested in buying other companies, including pro wrestling and boxing promotions.
McMahon and Khan spoke to analyst Steven Cahall on Wednesday at the Wells Fargo TMT Conference in Las Vegas, with the former harking back to comments she made on the recent WWE Q3 earnings call. This included mergers and acquisitions being one of the company’s potential areas for growth.
She said:
“Just to give some examples of what I meant by that, [an acquisition] has to align with our capabilities, whether that’s smaller wrestling promotions, say, internationally.”
The former WWE Women’s Champion did not drop any promotion names or international regions the company is targeting, but Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics has presumed that companies in Mexico and Japan are of interest.
When it comes to acquisitions, Khan and McMahon discussed potential opportunities in professional boxing. The latter noted how multiple boxing championships could be rolled into one, just like her father, former WWE Chairman & CEO Vince McMahon, did to the pro wrestling business in the late 1980s.
Khan chimed in by bringing up the rise of sports betting, meaning there’s an opportunity for WWE in horse racing, apart from boxing. He disclosed that horse racing might only be popular around three times a year, but that indicated that there may be a way to make those events successful more often.
