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Latest On WWE Sale Rumors, Possible Signs Vince McMahon Is More Involved Now
A new report has several updates on the rumors surrounding WWE seeking a potential sale, as well as people in the company thinking Vince McMahon may be more involved lately. Fightful Select has posted a lengthy report detailing some information they’ve received about the potential sale, which WWE has openly acknowledged they’re exploring since McMahon returned to the company in January.
According to the report, those within WWE say they expect “business to pick up” after WrestleMania and several have said that hosting WrestleMania in Los Angeles right around the time of the possible sale as well as media rights renegotiations has worked out well from a strategic standpoint. Sources at Comcast with knowledge of WWE have said that even though the company has a long relationship with McMahon and WWE, there’s no desire from their end to keep McMahon involved. It should be noted related to that that a CNBC report said that NBCUniversal/Comcast is not currently part of the sale process and appear to be out of the running.
The report notes that several sources in potential bidders have said that they would want Stephanie McMahon to return, with a source at Disney saying, “these companies are doing their due diligence, they’re following the news cycles, regardless of their public levels of interest. They’re aware of the things that would make audiences and staff happy. She seemed to bring a lot of positive to the company.” WWE’s progress under Nick Khan was also emphasized. It was a common feeling that WWE has effective teams in its structure and that the company would be a major boost to whatever buyer’s streaming service is involved.
It has been widely reported that Vince McMahon has said that he would be interested in a sale that didn’t involve him staying with WWE, something that the report notes he has said both to those high up in WWE and those close to him on a personal level. He has also sought to downplay rumors that he’s involved in creative, saying to those close to him that he’s back specifically to either sell the company or oversee rights fee negotiations. Nearly every source connected with a potential buyer have agreed that the notion of McMahon staying involved would negatively affect the sale price, leverage, and value of the brand moving ahead.
All that said, talent and producers noted several red flags regarding McMahon and creative, with talent noting that there are more late rewrites than usual of late than there had been before McMahon returned, and there have been “some strong indicators” of characters being adjusted in a way that McMahon had previously preferred which were changed or eased off on when Triple H took over. Talent have noted that there has been some extensive creative that was set forth but then adjusted at the last minute. It is important to note that no talent they’ve heard from have been flat told that McMahon is involved on a creative level outside of giving some advice.
Creative also insists that they have had no direct contact with McMahon, nor have they been told that any changes came from him. McMahon is said to have “stayed out of the way” when he was backstage at Raw in Boston, though talent noted that he was in the gorilla position. WWE and McMahon are both aware that if he were publicly involved, talent morale would take a huge hit and that there’s no “smoking gun” that he is involved. The concerns from talent were said to be so openly talked about in WWE that they made their way to the AEW locker room as well.