Bill Simmons likely doesn’t have numerous regrets, but not investing within the UFC is certainly certainly one of them.
While speaking with WWE president Nick Khan, who’s on the board of directors of TKO, the parent company of WWE and UFC, Simmons revealed he had a likelihood to take a position within the latter across the time it was sold for $4 billion.
“I actually checked out it, I actually studied it, and it’s hilarious why I didn’t invest because I should’ve,” Simmons said on his podcast. “I actually believed in UFC, and I assumed it was going to maintain getting greater. And the explanation I didn’t invest, and I got here to the conclusion it was too depending on media rights deals, and in the event that they didn’t get the media rights deals, the way in which they thought they were going to get the media rights deals, it wouldn’t have been price anything. So I used to be like, ‘I’m not doing it, I’m out.’”
After all, the UFC did get the media rights deals. The MMA promotion landed a five-year, $1.5 billion cope with ESPN back in 2018, and last 12 months, the UFC signed a seven-year, $7.7 billion media rights cope with Paramount Skydance.
In consequence, and because of WWE’s business, $TKO is now price greater than $184 per share, nearly 85% greater than it was when the corporate got here together in 2023.
“It was a whole misread,” Simmons said. “The conclusion I landed on was the precise opposite of what happened. They were completely right; media rights deals were exploding. All these great things were about to occur, and I used to be like, ‘I don’t know, I don’t see it. I don’t see the case.’”
Bill Simmons likely doesn’t have numerous regrets, but not investing within the UFC is certainly certainly one of them. While speaking with WWE president Nick Khan, who’s on the board of directors of TKO, the parent company of WWE and UFC, Simmons revealed he had a likelihood to take a position within the latter across the time it was sold for $4 billion.