TKO President Mark Shapiro Says More WWE Sponsorship Deals Are on the Way
TKO President Mark Shapiro says more WWE sponsorship deals are on the way as the company expects partnership revenue to accelerate during the second half of the year.
Shapiro appeared alongside TKO CEO Ari Emanuel on CNBC’s Squawk on the Street, where he discussed WWE’s partnership business and the company’s expectations for the remainder of the year.
WWE’s partnership revenue grew by more than 90% across 2024 and 2025 after TKO brought the sports entertainment juggernaut into its portfolio. Shapiro explained that TKO applied strategies it had previously used with UFC.
“’24 and ’25, we grew 90-plus percent because WWE was new to TKO and we took the playbook from UFC,” Shapiro said. “We applied it to WWE, and we took down the low-hanging fruit.”
Shapiro noted that WWE’s partnership revenue growth has been slower during the first half of this year, with growth of 2% in the first quarter and 8% in the second quarter.
He attributed the slower growth partly to WWE’s international event schedule. According to Shapiro, the number of international events during the first half of the year limited the number of global partnerships WWE could sell during that period.
“This year, what you’ve seen is 2 and 8% respectively in the first two quarters because we have so many international events this first half of the year, which don’t allow us to sell as much, as many global partnerships as we otherwise would,” Shapiro said.
Mark Shapiro Discusses Upcoming WWE Sponsorship Deals
However, Shapiro expects WWE’s partnership business to pick up during the second half of the year. He described the business as “back-loaded,” with numerous global partnership agreements set to take effect.
“But it’s back-loaded. The second half, a ton of global partnerships deals take effect, many multi-year, all high-margin, all recurring,” Shapiro said.
Shapiro also expects WWE to finish the year with more than 20% year-over-year growth in partnership revenue.
“And we will finish over 20% year-over-year increase on WWE partnership revenue for the year,” Shapiro said.
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