TKO announces WWE & UFC Q2 financials, insight on new ESPN deal & future opportunities
Wednesday marked a big day for TKO which started with the news of WWE’s premium live events moving to ESPN in 2026 and wrapped up with their Q2 financial call.
As a whole, TKO revenue finished at $1.308 billion — an year-over-year increase of 10% ($115.2 million). WWE’s revenue increased by $99.4 million to $556.2 million YOY while UFC increased to $415.9 million YOY off an increase of $21.5 million. TKO-owned IMG decreased by $13 million to $306.6 million YOY.
As expected, it was all positive regarding the aforementioned ESPN deal with the added potential value of shedding the contracted 250 hours of original programming in addition to five original documentaries and archive library they have to provide under the NBCU/Peacock deal. TKO chief operating officer Mark Shapiro and CFO Andrew Schleimer pointed to that fact in addition to their ability to sell rights to the NXT PLEs (six per year) in addition to their archive content.
In an interesting move, Shapiro and Schleimer clarified that the full total of the Peacock PLE deal was $900 million of total rights fees ($180 million AAV) and not the $1+ billion reported at the time of the deal nearly five years ago. That makes the increase look even better and potentially better if they can sell the rights to the aforementioned other content streams.
It was in this thread that Shapiro said “What made us feel ok walking away from Netflix…” before quickly saying he wasn’t suggesting they made an offer at any level.
That $900 million was first reported by the Wall Street Journal earlier in the day. Even though the initial Peacock deal was done prior to TKO ownership, the reason it was never corrected publicly was not addressed.
WWE Q2 Year over Year Revenue Breakdown
| Item | 2025 Q2 | 2024 Q2 | YOY increase/decrease |
| WWE media rights, production and content | $278.9 million | $260.7 million | $18.2 million+ |
| Live events and hospitality | $185.7 million | $144.1 million | $41.6 million+ |
| Partnerships and marketing | $58.3 million | $24.7 million | $33.6 million+ |
| Consumer products licensing and other | $33.3 million | $27.3 million | $6 million+ |
| Totals | $556.2 million | $456.8 million | $99.4 million+ |
Both WrestleMania 41 and Night of Champions from Saudi Arabia took place in Q2 which buoyed the increases like in Partnerships & Marketing and Live Events which was attributed to “higher ticket sales revenue as well as an increase in site fees, primarily due to revenue recorded related to both domestic and international premium live events.” Media rights were attributed to escalating fees and SmackDown’s expansion to three hours.
Notable Quotes:
- Shapiro said one of the reasons ESPN was attractive for their reach, their b-to-c strategy, and overall approach. They were reticent in wanting to put all their content eggs into one basket, and they could have got a slightly higher rights fees by going with another partner.
- He reiterated the idea of some PLEs being simulcast on ESPN’s linear networks, but noted it could be just the first hour or two. This would appear to be the WWE equivalent of the prelims for UFC shows that air on ESPN’s networks.
- Shapiro: “We are living in the big event era.” He said that was a reason the WWE PLEs package was so attractive to prospective buyers.
- He said ESPN liked how both WWE and UFC can attract new subs, “cord nevers” and cord cutters.
- Shapiro said WrestleMania needs to be a Super Bowl-esque event for ESPN.
- Shapiro put over the WWE relationship with Netflix and that “It’s clear we are a top tier product for the Netflix platform.”
- The idea of WWE fans “traveling” to different services was driven home by WWE president Nick Khan who claimed 96% of their audience for WWE Raw moved to Syfy when it was pre-empted from USA due to the Winter Olympics on less than two weeks notice. He also said the peak of 1.1 million of WWE Network subscribers went to Peacock when that move happened and Peacock’s base “grew massively” thanks to those coming for WWE content.
- They are in the “home stretch” of closing the new UFC media rights deal, a mix of balancing monetization and reach.
Other Notes:
- It was noted that six of the last eight UFC events were supported by site fees.
- They have broken their own record for highest grossing WWE arena event three times in the last year with Money in the Bank being the most recent.
- For the quarter, they hit 36 individual records for ticket sales (assumed to be combined between WWE and UFC) and sold out 16 shows.
- They continue to be bullish about WWE on Netflix, touting that Raw has appeared every week on the global Top Ten in addition to the success of WWE Unreal.
- Vince McMahon’s NDA payments continue to be a factor in the reports under TKO’s Certain Legal Costs section.
- Looking at the third quarter, UFC will hold ten events which includes two PPVs — their fewest in any quarter of the year (three in Q3 of last year) Eight events are expected to be held in front of fans, up from six in the same quarter last year. They also noted last year featured the UFC debut at the Sphere and a title sponsor.
- While SummerSlam will benefit WWE’s numbers in the third quarter, they will take a hit due to SmackDown reverting to two hours.
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.