TKO releases full 2024 WWE & UFC financials, Raw on Netflix ratings discussed
To no big surprise, TKO had a hugely successful 2024 thanks to its main WWE and UFC cogs, announced Wednesday and expounded upon during their quarterly investors call.
TKO saw an annual revenue of just over $2.8 billion with a net income of $6.4 million buoyed by a fourth quarter that saw revenues of $642.2 million and net income of $47.5 million.
EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, and amortization) was $1.251 billion for 2024 with the fourth quarter finishing $238.1 million. EBITA is a metric that investors use to measure profitability.
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Breaking the two brands out, WWE saw yearly revenues of $1.398 billion while UFC had $1.406 billion. For the fourth quarter, WWE had $298.3 million in revenue (down nearly $33 million year-over-year) while UFC beat them out at $343.9 million (up by nearly $61 million).
WWE took a hit in the fourth quarter with a revenue decrease of $32.9 million, offsetting a $61.1 million increase on the UFC side. The reason for the WWE drop was the media rights dip as the company had no home for Raw in-between USA and Netflix, taking a smaller money deal from NBCUniversal to remain on USA through the end of 2024.
WWE media rights and revenue finished at $865.5 million for the year, live events finished at $338.5 million, sponsorship was $83 million with consumer products finishing at $111.1 million.
Comparing Q4 from 2023 to 2024, media rights took the biggest hit at $156.3 million, down from 2023’s $212.2 million due to the aforementioned deal they had to take from NBCUniversal. Live events (up by roughly $11 million), sponsorship (up by more than $7 million) and consumer products (up by nearly $5 million) did not experience drops.
TKO’s low net income (down from $175.7 million in 2023) was attributed to several factors including an increase in operating expenses to $679.6 million which “reflected the inclusion of twelve months of WWE activity in reported results in 2024 as well as settlement charges of $375.0 million related to the UFC antitrust lawsuit.” This is the first full year report TKO has had after officially forming in September 2023.
Q&A
- Of specific note on the WWE side of the fence, TKO executive Mark Shapiro said on the Q&A portion of the call that the WWE/Peacock deal is up in March 2026.
- He also said Raw is up 13% in viewership on Netflix from USA last year and that The CW is “seeing a great uplift from NXT.”
- WWE president Nick Khan said that “all we’ve seen from Netflix is an appetite for more WWE” and that more ancillary programming “is cooking in the pipeline.”
- Asked about the UFC TV rights deal, Shapiro said they are still talking with ESPN and are in the exclusive negotiating window with them.
- TKO chief financial officer Andrew Schleimer said they expect Saudi Arabia to host three WWE PLEs in 2026 and one in 2025
Since 2011, Josh has been a contributing editor to Wrestling Observer/F4WOnline.com and also hosts the Punch-Out podcast. He has also written for Fight Magazine, Bloody Elbow, Bleacher Report, and other websites. He's a 2000 graduate of the University of Maine, worked in pro sports, and once was an indie ring announcer.