TKO의 성장 전략: 스포츠 판권 및 전략적 인수

### TKO의 전략적 성장: 자본 수익 및 미디어 판권 확장
* 📈 WWE와 UFC의 합병으로 탄생한 TKO는 재정적으로 기대 이상의 성과를 거두었으며, 최근에는 **분기별 배당금을 포함한 강력한 자본 환원 프로그램**을 시작했습니다.
* 🏅 이 회사는 **호스피탈리티 사업, PBR 스포츠 리그, IMG 미디어 판권 컨설팅 등 세 가지 전략적 자산**을 인수하여 성장을 촉진하고 스포츠 생태계를 확장할 것으로 기대됩니다.
* 💡 TKO는 스포츠 부문의 견조한 실적을 반영하여 **최고 매출과 조정 상각전영업이익(EBITDA)에 대한 가이던스를 1년 만에 두 번째로 상향 조정**했습니다.
* 🎤 이 회사는 **리그 소유권의 유기적 성장**에 초점을 맞추고 복싱과 같은 스포츠 리그에서 기회를 모색하는 한편, 현재 시장에서 선택의 폭이 제한적이라는 점을 인정하고 있습니다.
* 🤝 이전에 회사를 이끌었던 빈스 맥마흔은 더 이상 의사 결정에 관여하지 않지만 **지원 주주**로 남아 **TKO가 기회를 확장하는 데 집중**할 수 있도록 돕고 있습니다.
* 📺 2025년부터 시작될 넷플릭스의 미디어 판권 계약은 **콘텐츠에 대한 막대한 투자**로 스포츠 판권 수요를 견인할 것으로 예상되는 혁신적인 단계로 여겨지고 있습니다.
* 🌍 TKO의 국제 전략은 지정학의 영향을 많이 받는데, **IMG는 35개국에서 판권을 관리**하고 있어 글로벌 스포츠 협상의 복잡성을 헤쳐나가는 데 도움이 됩니다.
* 🔮 앞으로도 TKO는 자산을 활용하고 새로운 기회를 모색하는 동시에 **콘텐츠 저작권에 집중**하고 **글로벌 입지를 확장**하기 위해 최선을 다할 것입니다.

TKO는 전략적 인수와 성과 향상을 통해 경쟁이 치열한 스포츠 환경에서 지속적인 성장과 확장을 위한 입지를 다지고 있습니다.

You guys are fresh off earnings. Tell me what stood out to you this quarter and sort of what's driving the growth of your company? Well, I'll tell you, it starts with the fact that we're roughly a year, just a year, from the formation of TKO, WWE, and UFC coming together, and a lot of doubts about how that was going to work. But our strategic execution and the integration have allowed us to financially outperform our original forecast. And at the same time, with our announcement last week, we've now initiated a robust capital return program, including a quarterly dividend. And at the same time, been able to acquire three super strategic, pure-play sports assets. So we feel like we're in a good place. Our third quarter, keep in mind this is the second time now in just a year, that we've raised guidance on both top-line revenue and adjusted EBITDA.

And with the third-quarter performance, we are guiding now to the upper end of that third quarter. So, sports events are hot, sports experiences are hot, sports premium content is hot, and we're sitting dead center. All right, definitely want to talk about the hotness element of that. We'll get to that in a second. Let's talk about the deal you referenced first. So, like you said, three different businesses going from endeavor to TKO, a hospitality business, PBR, a sports league, and then a media rights consultancy business in IMG. What does that say to you about the future of TKO? Because at least from a layman's perspective. TKO, oh, that's a fighting company, but clearly it's more than that. Yes, and it was always intended to be more than that. TKO just reflects the combat sports nature of UFC and of course the scripted WWE.

But look, we are building the moat. That's what we're doing here. We are piling up, if you will, assets that will fuel our growth. Very consistent with what we've been saying on earnings, which is we're looking for sports leagues out there, few and far between. I wish I got in on NWSL or something in the women's space, and maybe that's to come one day. But we're looking for sports leagues, and PBR provides that. That's analogous to what we do, right? It's the whole sports ecosystem, revenue-generating areas, from live events to media rights to consumer products to site fees that are right in our wheelhouse. It's what we do every day. And PBR is a proven commodity, and we know it well because of our days at Endeavor. The other two assets, I mean, IMG is a stalwart.

I mean, it's a legendary asset. It's been around since Mark McCormack started it in 1960. And we're newsflash at 11, we're in the sports rights business. We will use IMG globally to help us get the kind of increases we expect to get for both UFC, WWE, and soon to be, PBR. And then finally on location, by far, it's not even close, the market leader in sports experiences and hospitality, everything from the Super Bowl to the Olympics to now FIFA's World Cup. So having that company come into the ecosystem, which, by the way, already supports WWE and UFC in a big way, all that's going to do is accelerate, fuel, and strengthen the growth of TKO. Well, let's talk about the league ownership one, because what is the art of the possible in terms of league ownership? In other words, do you think you could buy into

the PGA? Do you think you could buy into tennis? Are those things you've started to look at? No, I'll tell you. Look, we're not we're not looking at tennis, and LIV's got enough problems trying to buy into the PGA tour, so we're not going there. The fact is, there aren't a lot of sports leagues out there, so we won't be looking at acquiring anything because we don't see anything coming on the horizon. PBR was there, most folks questioned why it wasn't in TKO at the start. That's another story related to Vince McMahon, but anything we do from an ownership perspective, or a new league perspective going forward will probably be organic. I mean, boxing is something that Dana White has consistently brought up. We're not going to go buy or acquire any kind of boxing agencies, or boxing federations, if you will.

But could we organically start something and/or bring on a partner that fuels that, that financially fuels that. So we take no risk? That's something we're really attracted to. What is the Vince McMahon PBR story? Just Vince didn't want to start TKO with anything more than two sports. He saw these two as juggernauts. He's right about that and he just didn't want to confuse the message. He was on board with PBR long term, but from the get-go, he wanted just the two. And frankly, you know, it's a compromise. You're putting a deal together. You're bringing two assets together. We had to do some things that Vince wanted, and Vince had to take some things that Dana White, Ari Emanuel, and myself wanted. Since we're talking about Vince, one question about Vince, he's not a part of the company anymore.

He's sold out. Do you still hear from him at all? I had breakfast with him a few weeks ago, just to check in. Been a long time. Haven't heard from him at all. Obviously, the series on Netflix came out. I wanted to see kind of where he was, by the way, he couldn't have been more cooperative. He couldn't have been, he couldn't have been nicer. I mean, he was a total pro at breakfast, if you will. It's a one-on-one get-together. But he's out of the business entirely. He doesn't make decisions, he's not on the board, he doesn't opine, we don't consult him. He's got some litigation that he's working through, and frankly, he wants the privacy and the time to work through it, which is great because in the meantime, we're going to

keep building TKO and WWE and expanding the horizon, expanding the opportunities. And by the way, he's still a shareholder, not the shareholder he once was, but he's still a shareholder. But he's supportive of the direction WWE is going in and has gone. Couldn't have been, couldn't have been more positive, but I wasn't asking for his opinion. Let's talk about some of the WWE aspects, which are exciting. The big one being, you guys announced a little while ago, there's a Netflix media rights deal that's coming up, starts at the beginning of 2025. Do you feel like this is the start of something transformative in the industry? In other words, that the big tech companies YouTube, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, will become the dominant players in owning sports rights. Look, content is strong. Everybody loves to write about the demise or the

squeezing of the content spend. The fact of the matter is, between the six biggest spenders globally, $126 billion in content will have been spent in 2024, which is up 300 basis points from last year and expected to grow another 9% next year. So, content spend from the Netflix, and the Amazons, and the Disney's, and the Warner Brothers, and the Googles, it's hot, right? It's meaningful, and Sports rights is driving a lot of that right now. That's what's more amazing than anything else. Sports used to be, 'oh, by the way, oh, something on the weekend'. Now it's leading the way. Sure, there are a lot of scripted series. Sure, there are a lot of docs, and features, and films that are out there. Sure, the movie business is coming back,

and folks are investing in all kinds of different windows, but sports rights is leading the way. Whether it's the NFL, the CFP, our WWE deal on Netflix. Content spend in sports is strong and healthy, and yes, I believe you will see more players, new players, looking to expand their content portfolio when it comes to sports. For like 30 years, people have talked about this idea of is, are we in a sports bubble? That has not proven to be the case. As you said, if anything, we appear to be hotter now, than ever before, in terms of sports-associated interest, media rights. But let me give you a scenario and I want to hear your thoughts on it. We also talked about peak TV maybe five years ago, and that has borne out that five years ago, when all the streaming services jumped in, a ton of shows were made, and now we're

in the post-peak TV era where you're seeing a pullback. Is it possible that the reason sports are so hot right now is you have new streaming players that want subscribers, and an old legacy media industry that's dying, and holding on to sports for dear life. And these two factors that have married to each other right now have led to a number of different bidders that absolutely want and need sports, and that five years from now, after we see consolidation within the media rights, the further death of cable TV. We have fewer buyers, and this dynamic doesn't exist anymore, and the demand for sports rights actually comes down. I love it. How many different ways can we try to write the story that the sports bubble is going to burst? Here's the way I look at it. Sports rights are always hot in some form. The temperature is up there.

Let's just be clear about that. Sometimes, it's really super hot. And if you catch it in that wave, in that moment, in that frame, you're going to fully capitalize on getting the kind of increases you're looking for as a content rights owner. Sometimes it's just warm, so you'll get an increase, but it may not be record-breaking, but it's always going to be in demand because sports unify us. That's what it does. Sports is argument. There's history, there's equity, there's tradition, there's folklore, there's stars, there's personalities, there's rivalries, there's rooting interests. Name your sport. You've got it. I walked into the office today to I don't even know, 400-foot blow-up dolls of Mike Tyson and Jake Paul. Right outside the windows area. You got it. I mean, and by the way, hundreds of people

standing in front of them, taking pictures. I'm texting Bela Bajaria in Netflix. Like, you nailed this activation, you got the weather right. You got the big, earned media moment. And there's going to be two sides of that fence. Who's cheering for Paul, and who's cheering for Tyson? And there's a curiosity factor. And that also plays in sports, that's going to continue globally. Look at soccer. Soccer didn't even exist when I was running ESPN. I mean, come on, it was MLS, and there was a World Cup every four years that we were interested if the U.S. did well. Now Women's soccer has two leagues globally. MLS has grown so much under Don Garber and the fantastic job he's done. The World Cup, The Euro Cup, has been a super communal event. And then of course NFL still going strong, college football.

going stronger than ever with a 12-team CFP. And then UFC's now become a mainstream. WWE has carved out its own niche. The World Series is coming off the best ratings since 2017. This isn't slowing down, it's just a question of catching it as a content rights owner when it's peaking, because it will have some dips. You mentioned ESPN that you used to work there. They are about to launch a full-on direct-to-consumer product for the first time, likely in August of 2025. Is that the right strategy for them and will it work 100%? I'm so glad they got out of the venue business, whatever that was going to be. Look. Are they out of it? I mean, they're at least temporarily out of it. Yeah, the judge has put them on the sideline, but I think it's going to be tough for that to be resurrected.

And I didn't agree with the strategy in the first place. Having said that, this is absolutely the way to go. And I love the way Jimmy Pitaro has been positioning it. All kinds of bells and whistles and sports betting will be integrated, and e-commerce will be integrated. Keep in mind, they have to do a mirror of what the linear ESPN is. If they didn't have to do a mirror, I think they'd be off to the races. If it was just direct-to-consumer in a different way than ESPN+ was, meaning they could program it differently than ESPN, I think they'd be off to the races. Really, what you have here is a mirror, so they've got to find bells and whistles, extra feeds, extra camera looks, the sports betting as we talked about, more personalization, more customization, more fantasy. So you feel like I am really getting something different.

here, even if the programming mirrors ESPN. But I'm getting a personalized experience, and that's why I'm going to pay for it. And I'll tell you, as someone that delivers content to their pipe in the name of the UFC, that's something that's attractive to us. And they have to do a mirror because of the existing contracts they have with TV distributors. Yeah. Last year, I reported that the WWE was interested potentially in sports betting and having people bet on matches which are scripted. Haven't heard much about it. Not happening. It's not happening. We're not doing that. We're scripted. We're look, years ago, I ran Dick Clark Productions. We had enough time, enough challenge keeping the American Music Awards in the Golden Globe winners under wraps. Exactly, with an auditor that was there. We're not going to be asking Triple H, Paul Levesque, who

runs our creative to keep his scripts, you know, so under wrapped that we can start sports betting. It just doesn't jive. We'll do it with the UFC. We are doing it with the UFC, and it's really growing. And keep in mind, it really lends itself to sports betting. Think about UFC long card, multiple fights, multiple rounds, submissions, grappling, the way someone's taken down, the way somebody knocked out, so many props you can bet on. And the youth, young men specifically, love it. You have a UFC media rights deal that expires next year. Can you update us on sort of the state of talks there? I think it's going to be a busy first quarter. To your point earlier, we've got the PLEs, the Premium Live Events, for WWE. Our deal with Peacock ends during the next year. And of course, our UFC deal with Disney and ESPN ends at

the end of next year. So, we'll be negotiating on all fronts, if you will. Ari and I will have a pretty big first quarter as we go around the merry-go-round, if you will, to talk to the different players who were interested in potentially splitting the packages. We've got linear, we've got digital, we've got pay-per-view. I mean, there's a lot of options here. We're going to explore all of them. But let's be clear, we have an exclusive window with Comcast on the plan for WWE. And we have an exclusive window with Disney, ESPN on UFC. And we intend to honor that. And frankly, there are two fantastic partners who are very passionate about these two sports, their sports and entertainment leagues, and committed to growing them. You mentioned the hotness factor. We talked about it briefly there, about how this sort of

idea of a sports bubble is continuous. It never really pans out. Is there a particular aspect of investing in sports business? This goes beyond even media. Because you're not just investing in media properties. That is maybe, uh, specifically undervalued today that you're looking at. Nothing specifically. Look, we keep our eyes out on what's hot? What's next? What's trending? Right. Our eyes are always on the rearview mirror, right? Who's close to us? Who's catching up to us? What can we do to separate ourselves? So, innovation, extremely important to us. What I can tell you from an acquisition standpoint, we have our portfolio. We're committed to what we have. We have a lot of work in front of us. Remember, we still have to finish up on the integration of TKO itself, right? We message to the street that we would do 100 million in net

cost synergies. I'm proud to say we're ahead of that curve. We're continuing to find ways on the top and bottom line to save money and generate new revenue. That's a good story for us, but we're not done. And now all of a sudden, you're bringing in three new assets: IMG, PBR, on location. We need to focus on reaping the rewards with these three assets, educating the street on the promise and the story, delivering on the returns, increasing our margins. We're laser-focused as a company. At the same time, we'll look for new areas, whether it's cricket, or it's boxing, or it's women's sports, or what might be hot or next, that might be able to have some kind of association with TKO. As you think internationally, look, we've seen WWE matches in China. UFC is all over the globe at this point.

How important is geopolitics when it comes to your international strategy? Well, significantly important. I mean, look, we're out there. IMG, for example, sells the UFC rights around the globe, everywhere from Australia to Vietnam. I mean, door to door, country to country. We have, fortunately, IMG in 35 different countries, and they manage or sell the rights to almost 160 different sports properties. So, it gives us a great view. And we have personal relationships in these regions. We're able to really see around the corner, right? See in front of where things are going, how they're trending, what's maybe fading a little bit. What seems to be on the rise? That's huge. When you're negotiating sports rights. That's huge when you're negotiating with different players who financially are all in different states, right? Streamers kind of on the way up.

Big investment, linear, being challenged, trying to figure out how to pivot their business model. So I would tell you that whatever happens, whether it's the Mideast, or it's Ukraine, or it's China, Taiwan, our eyes are on this all the time. And frankly, when Russia first invaded Ukraine, that posed problems for the UFC. What were we going to do with our sports betting partners? What were we going to do with our media feed? What were we going to do with our athletes who are having a tough time getting out of wherever they were in the corner of the Earth to be able to get into The Octagon or travel on a plane. So we get impacted all the way around. Comcast just announced it's contemplating spinning off its cable networks. Yeah. What A, what do you think of that? And B, what does that tell you about where we're headed?

from a media standpoint? Look, I think everybody's being pretty candid and articulate about the good and bad assets that they have, right? Now remember, these are all, still even some of these cable networks that you and I may not watch every day, they're still cash flow cows, similar, by the way, to TKL, which is a— Reason why these media companies have held on to them I would say. Exactly. Tough to let them go. But remember, Disney went down this road as well. And decided to pull back. Exactly. Or temporarily pull back. We'll see how that plays out. And I think that's what you're finding across the board. I like the fact that Cavanagh, Mike Cavanagh, introduced it, at Comcast as a potential path. And now they're going to sit back. Fortunately they can. They're in the driver's seat.

There's no gun to their head. They're doing well still on audience. They're doing well with their video providers, and they're doing well with cash flow, that they're not forced to make a sale. But if there's something that makes sense, or there's some kind of aggregation that could happen that they could feed into, it's another platform. It's another tier, it's another option for viewers, and it cleans up their story. Okay, do me a favor. Prediction time, five years from now, who's still around among the big media guys? I think the big guys are all around. They're all still hanging around the hoop and— You say big guys. Or leading the way. Disney, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Warner Brothers, Comcast, Paramount, CBS is there too. And maybe there's a Warner Brothers play. Who knows what happens, right? There's all kinds of different scenarios out there.

And I would never bet against John Malone. Let's say that. But I mean YouTube's earnings insane, quarter-to-quarter. These guys are doing 12.5 billion of advertising every quarter. That's a head spinner. Netflix spending $17 billion in content. Not afraid to spend more for the right thing. Tiptoeing in sports with the NFL Christmas games. Viewership engagement, off the charts. Amazon, hey, one-stop shop, I'm going to the marketplace, I'm going to shop, and I'm also going to take in some content and a real player now in sports. And by the way, doing it very, very well. And you can never bet against Disney. I mean for me, the best, most prolific brand in all of content. So I think they'll all be around, but they'll definitely look for ways to shed some archaic assets.

Just one thing, because you probably have more insight into Netflix in terms of their, uh, future sports plans than most, considering you guys struck this sort of landmark deal with them. What did they tell you? What is their grand plan? Are they using you as a guinea pig for a broader world takeover? I think they've already taken the world over. I mean, they're almost at 300. Sports? Yes, they're almost at 300 million subscribers. You know, they make very few mistakes. Across the board, from rom-coms to games, to scripted fare, dramatic scripted fare, to docs. You know, they are just a great place to go sample. And they have the greatest, broadest, fullest offering. And their play to us was we want something that's episodic. Now it's sports, but it's quasi sports, and it's going

to be every week, and we're going to bring in the marketing powerhouse that we are to the table to back this up. And we're going to use you as an AVOD player for us. Think about that. Advertising is so important to the growth of Netflix, and we're going to see how they do with live events. The Tyson Paul fight will tell us a lot. How many folks come to the table to watch that? How many folks sign up for Netflix or claim that they stayed with Netflix because of that. The NFL games will also tell us something on Christmas Day, and then right following that, will be the January 6th premiere of Raw on Netflix, and then week-to-week, they're going to drive that. Now in the first year, they're not going to be ready to personalize their advertising. So no dynamic advertising if you will. They don't have that tool in effect.

And we knew that when we signed up, they'll have it for a year or two. But they will have advertising that they'll kind of manually put in as the old days. And it's filled up. I can tell you that. Is it possible that they're a UFC partner? I think absolutely. They'll be at the table on UFC. I mean, they get the UFC, they're fans of the UFC, they've been to the UFC, their kids watch UFC, and they're looking for those leagues, those brands, those kind of power sports content factories that can go global. And UFC is very much a global brand.

TKO Group COO Mark Shapiro On UFC Media Rights, Vince McMahon And Gambling

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WWE와 UFC의 합병으로 탄생한 TKO는 재정적 기대치를 뛰어넘어 강력한 자본 환원 프로그램과 전략적 인수로 이어졌습니다.

강력한 에코시스템 구축을 목표로 스포츠 리그, 프리미엄 콘텐츠, 라이브 이벤트에 중점을 두고 성장하고 있습니다.

PBR, IMG, 온 로케이션 인수를 통해 TKO는 성장을 가속화하고 스포츠 업계에서 입지를 강화할 수 있게 되었습니다.

스포츠 소유권에 대한 향후 계획과 전망

테니스나 복싱 등 새로운 스포츠 리그를 인수할 계획은 없으며, 대신 유기적인 성장에 집중할 계획입니다.

빈스 맥마흔이 TKO에 관여한 것은 두 가지 종목으로 제한되었으며, 그는 더 이상 회사의 일원이 아니지만 여전히 지지하는 주주로 남아 있습니다.

2024년 전 세계 콘텐츠 지출은 넷플릭스, 아마존, 디즈니와 같은 주요 기업이 주도하는 가운데 스포츠 판권을 중심으로 1,260억 달러에 달할 것으로 예상됩니다.

새로운 플레이어의 시장 진입과 미디어 판권에 대한 지속적인 관심으로 스포츠 콘텐츠에 대한 수요는 강세를 보이고 있습니다.

스포츠 버블에 대한 논의에도 불구하고 스포츠 판권에 대한 수요는 통합적인 특성과 새로운 스트리밍 서비스와 기존 미디어 간의 역학 관계로 인해 여전히 높을 것으로 예상됩니다.

전 세계적으로 축구, MLS, 여자 축구 리그가 확대되는 등 스포츠가 크게 성장하고 있습니다.

NFL과 대학 미식축구는 번창하고 있으며, UFC와 WWE는 자신들만의 틈새 시장을 개척했습니다.

2025년에 출시 예정인 ESPN의 소비자 직접 판매 상품 출시는 선형 프로그램을 미러링하면서 개인화된 경험을 제공하는 것을 목표로 하는 중요한 전략으로 간주됩니다.

스포츠 베팅 및 미디어 권리 협상

특히 다양한 베팅 소품을 제공하는 UFC의 인기가 높아짐에 따라 스포츠 베팅으로 사업을 확장하고 있습니다.

Comcast와 Disney/ESPN의 독점 창구를 통해 WWE와 UFC를 포함한 미디어 판권 계약을 위한 협상을 앞두고 있습니다.

이 회사는 혁신에 집중하고 경쟁사와의 차별화를 꾀하는 동시에 TKO의 통합에 전념하고 있습니다.

비용 시너지 및 국제 전략에 집중

이 회사는 비용을 절감하고 새로운 수익을 창출하는 방법을 찾는 데 앞장서고 있으며, IMG, PBR, 온 로케이션과 같은 새로운 자산에서 수익을 거두는 데도 집중하고 있습니다.

지정학은 국제 전략에서 중요한 역할을 하며, IMG는 35개국에서 UFC 판권을 판매하고 160개의 스포츠 자산을 관리하고 있습니다.

이 회사는 글로벌 이벤트와 트렌드를 지속적으로 모니터링하여 문제를 해결하고 스포츠 판권을 효과적으로 협상하고 있습니다.

대형 미디어 기업들은 자산에 대해 솔직하게 공개하고 있으며, 컴캐스트와 같은 일부 기업은 전략적 결정을 내릴 수 있는 강력한 위치에 있습니다.

디즈니, 아마존, 넷플릭스, 구글, 워너 브라더스, 컴캐스트, 파라마운트 등 주요 업체들은 향후 5년 동안에도 관련성을 유지할 것으로 예상됩니다.

이러한 기업들은 시청자 참여와 콘텐츠 제공을 위한 새로운 기회를 모색하는 동시에 오래된 자산을 적극적으로 정리하고 있습니다.

가입자 3억 명에 빠르게 다가서고 있는 Netflix는 에피소드형 스포츠 프로그램을 통해 성장을 도모할 계획입니다.

넷플릭스는 이번 파트너십을 광고에 중점을 둔 AVOD 플레이어로 활용하여 사업 확장을 촉진할 계획입니다.

이 회사의 전략에는 타이슨 폴 경기와 NFL 경기와 같은 라이브 이벤트를 통해 시청자의 관심을 측정하고 가입을 유도하는 한편, 향후 UFC와 글로벌 스포츠 콘텐츠를 위한 파트너십을 맺을 가능성도 있습니다.