- 5 hours ago
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Look, we're, what are we now, April? We're four months in.
00:03Four months in.
00:03So we started with Canelo Crawford, a super fight in September on Netflix
00:07with our partners in Saudi, Turkey al-Sheikh.
00:10We set, I think, the third highest gate record for that fight, for any fight ever.
00:16Allegiant Stadium, you know, which was a big event.
00:19Massive viewership on Netflix. It seemed to hit.
00:22And then we started Zufa in January.
00:23We're the startup. We're the underdog.
00:26We're not UFC. We're not WWE.
00:28We sort of have to prove our way.
00:30And, you know, the establishment in any business doesn't like,
00:34when there's an upstart or newcomers, no problem by us.
00:37Hello and welcome to this week's episode of SBJ's On Stage.
00:42I'm your host, Taylor Bloom.
00:44Today's episode comes from the CAA World Congress of Sports in Los Angeles,
00:48where Nick Kahn, president of WWE and board member of TKO,
00:52sat down with Abe Madcor, Sports Business Journal's publisher and executive editor.
00:56Recorded on April 15th, 2026, this conversation explores WWE's continued evolution
01:03as a global sports entertainment powerhouse,
01:06from media rights and international expansion to talent strategy
01:09and the changing economics of live content.
01:12Kahn also reflects on his leadership journey
01:14and what it takes to operate at the center of sports, media, and entertainment
01:18during a period of massive industry change.
01:21Let's go on stage.
01:23How are you feeling about this weekend?
01:25We're feeling good.
01:26Yeah?
01:27Sales are strong.
01:27Are they strong?
01:28Because the buzz on the market is a little softer than last year.
01:31Listen, last year we set, you know, records, which we set the year prior,
01:35the year prior to that.
01:36So this year we think is going to get close to that record, but fingers crossed.
01:40So you went back to Vegas back to back. Why?
01:43I think when I went out there for their first Super Bowl a couple of years ago,
01:49I was shocked but not shocked at how easy it was for Vegas to handle that big of a crowd.
01:54It's a city built for tourism.
01:56So we were impressed with that.
01:57We sat down with a gentleman named Steve Hill from the Las Vegas Visitors
02:00and Convention Authority, struck a deal with him.
02:03The event was quite successful last year.
02:05Boom. So we struck another one for this year.
02:06All right, let's talk about you.
02:08You grew up in Vegas, born I think in 1974, grew up watching boxing, right?
02:13Yeah.
02:13I mean, that was the hometown sport.
02:16Yeah, so it was, you know, as everyone knows in a pre-cable world, pre-Fox,
02:21three networks and some crazy like UHF channels.
02:24So on Saturdays every day, every Saturday, pardon me, on CBS and ABC at least,
02:30and at some point NBC, you had boxing at 1 p.m. Pacific.
02:32So that was our local sport, that and UNLV basketball.
02:36That's what you'd read about in the papers.
02:38That's what you'd, you know, watch on the local news.
02:40Running Rebels days?
02:41Running Rebels.
02:42Tark the Shark was the code.
02:43Tark the Shark.
02:44This is even pre-Larry Johnson and the amazing team, if anyone remembers it.
02:48You know, Reggie Theus, the teams prior to that.
02:50Right.
02:51So those were the two sports you sort of grew up on.
02:53And wrestling also, which was at least monthly at an old hotel called the Showboat Hotel.
02:59But that's when it was like $4 a ticket for boxing or wrestling.
03:03So we went to a lot of those.
03:04And so then did you know you want to be in sports?
03:06Because you went to law school, you became a lawyer, right?
03:08Yes.
03:09So what was the vision of Nick Khan in terms of what you wanted to do?
03:11I just didn't want to be broke anymore.
03:14It was sort of that.
03:15It's good incentive.
03:16People in the room, and I see some in the front room, who I'm sure have thought the same thing.
03:21I was waiting tables, going to UNLV.
03:23I would do part-time work in addition to my full-time waiting tables job.
03:27And was an usher at WrestleMania 9 at Caesars Palace.
03:31Okay.
03:31Which, you know, our head of production, Lee Fitting, sort of snuck into a documentary that we did some footage
03:38of me in my Usher shirt.
03:40And just so we're all clear, like, terrible Usher.
03:43These are the folks where, you know, someone would come up to you with a hard copy of the ticket
03:47then.
03:47And it would say, like, section C, row L.
03:50And I'd be like, it's right this way.
03:51Here's your seat.
03:52They'd be like, this isn't section C.
03:53I'd be like, all right, I'm sorry.
03:54Just walk away.
03:56But I got to go to the big events to get paid.
03:58And I saw, you know, WrestleMania 9.
04:00Not World's Greatest Usher, though, obviously.
04:02Not World's Greatest Usher.
04:03Did you always want to represent talent?
04:05You know, when I was a lawyer, it was sort of like, okay,
04:08I was primarily a defense lawyer.
04:12And I always thought the ramifications for that profession were tough.
04:16You could get indicted.
04:19You know, you get close to certain clients and this and that.
04:22You could get disbarred if you had the wrong client and it was the wrong result.
04:27There could be worse things than that that happened.
04:29So when I was 25, it was fine.
04:31But as I got into my early 30s, I was like, ah, maybe there's an easier way than this.
04:37So started representing some sports broadcasting talent.
04:41Finally got to pitch Howie and Vino on, hey, please hire me.
04:45Please hire me.
04:46Which they graciously did in 2012.
04:50And went on what I think was a great collective run with them, Jimmy Sexton, Alan Gold,
04:56and a number of other good folks at CA until about six years ago.
05:00Matt Kramer, Tom Young.
05:02And you go to WWE and it's a different business when you joined then than it is now.
05:07Yes.
05:07It was a family-run business.
05:09Vince, Steph, Triple H.
05:11Now it's TKO Group, Public.
05:13What's the difference?
05:14So we had had the good fortune of representing WWE in their media rights.
05:18So you got a sense of the business.
05:20So coming in, it wasn't a new thing to me.
05:23I sort of knew the personalities.
05:25And to be rule number one when you join a family business is stay out of the family's business.
05:31Like that is not for me to navigate or.
05:34How do you do that though in a family business?
05:36You do a lot of listening and not a lot of talking.
05:38Got it.
05:38So, and if anyone watched the show Succession when it was a hot show, if you ever looked
05:44at the Roy family and the people that worked there and said, what are those idiots doing
05:48working there?
05:49Not the Roy family.
05:50The other people.
05:51Like that was me.
05:52It's a non-family person.
05:54But you didn't really interject your opinion.
05:57You just listened and carried out business.
06:00I interjected my opinion all the time on the business side of things.
06:03I would never interject my opinion on, well, this person said this and that said that
06:07had no interest.
06:09And by the way, I'm interjecting my opinion.
06:11It's sort of like anyone else who's ever dealt with self-made billionaires.
06:15In my opinion, you can say whatever you want, as long as it's in private and said respectfully.
06:20And you could usually get the person, you know, at that point, Vince, to sway your way,
06:26which I found him completely reasonable in all the time I worked for and with him.
06:30Did you miss or do you miss the agency business?
06:32I loved it while I was an agent.
06:34I just thought, you know, there was a different opportunity.
06:37It was during COVID.
06:39I called Howie and Vino.
06:41My family and I escaped.
06:43L.A. was way shut down.
06:46Way shut down.
06:47We live in Los Angeles.
06:49Now, I didn't move to Nashville like Howie and say, I'm getting out, getting out.
06:53But we went to Hawaii.
06:55And the thought behind that was, hey, this thing seems like it's going to last for a long time.
06:59There's not going to be any business travel because of the time change.
07:02You could do anything that a working parent wanted to do.
07:05You'd start the day really early.
07:07But by three o'clock local, you're in the pool with your kids.
07:10My wife and I have two children.
07:11You're barbecuing.
07:12You're doing everything you want to do.
07:13So I was there.
07:15Vince McMahon called.
07:15They extended the offer.
07:17I liked it.
07:18I called Howie and Vino and asked their point of view and their permission and their blessing,
07:24which they blessed graciously for me.
07:27And I took the job starting a week or two later.
07:30And then now a TKO group, which I find to be really an unbelievable success in what you've put together
07:36with Mark and Dana between UFC,
07:39what you're doing at the WWE, Zufa boxing, PBR and other things.
07:43Where's the growth for the TKO group?
07:45So, look, the hyper focus right now is on our existing businesses.
07:49So even if you look at these are all publicly released numbers, the revenue and profitability of the company, the
07:58the cost synergies,
08:00the revenue synergies between WWE and UFC in particular, and now Zufa boxing are phenomenal.
08:05So if you want to do a sponsorship deal with one, maybe you have to do a sponsorship deal with
08:10all.
08:10And we found that that leverage in the marketplace has worked quite well as it applies to venues, television deals
08:17or content deals and everything else.
08:19So no M&A pending for TKO group in terms of other properties to come into the fold?
08:24We're going to stick with what we have for now and try to grow it out in the right way.
08:28Are you happy with boxing so far?
08:30Look, we're what are we now?
08:32April, we're four months in.
08:33Four months in.
08:33So we started with Canelo Crawford, a super fight in September on Netflix with our partners in Saudi, Turkey Al
08:39Sheikh.
08:40We set, I think, the third highest gate record for that fight for any fight ever.
08:46Allegiant Stadium, you know, which was a big event.
08:49Right.
08:49Massive viewership on Netflix.
08:51It seemed to hit.
08:52And then we started Zufa in January.
08:54We're the startup.
08:55We're the underdog.
08:56We're not UFC.
08:57We're not WWE.
08:59We sort of have to prove our way.
09:01And, you know, the establishment in any business doesn't like when there's an upstart or newcomers, no problem by us.
09:07Do you think boxing boxers could be crossover celebs?
09:12I think if you look back for anyone over the age of 50 in the room, I look back in
09:161984 and I say to myself in the United States, who are the most popular athletes?
09:20So, okay, Bird and Magic were already in the league.
09:23Joe Montana.
09:24Jordan wasn't in the league yet.
09:26And then you go to the individual sports stars.
09:28You went to John McEnroe, Chris Everett, Jack Nicklaus, Sugar Ray Leonard, Boom Boom Mancini, Evil Knievel, if you wanted
09:35to consider him an athlete.
09:37All individual sports stars.
09:39And then the leagues became the leagues.
09:40The NFL went on this juggernaut, you know, surge that it's still on to its credit.
09:46The NBA, Jordan comes in.
09:48David Stern, they sort of changed the whole leagues.
09:50The individual sports stayed the same.
09:53So outside of UFC and WWE, if you said in 1984, and by the way, add Mary Lou Retton, Carl
10:00Lewis to sort of most famous athletes.
10:02Yeah.
10:02So the question when we were kids was, who's the fastest man on the planet?
10:06You always knew the answer to that.
10:08I don't know the answer to that right now.
10:10And who's the heavyweight champion of the world?
10:12You always knew the answer to that.
10:14There's some in the room who would know here, but it's not as known as it once was.
10:18The issue is when boxing's great, it's amazing.
10:21It's just not great often enough.
10:23And it's sturdy.
10:25It's ridiculous.
10:25The characters in the sport, a lot of them are absurd.
10:29There's some good folks too.
10:30Okay.
10:30A lot of them are absurd.
10:31But again, we're the startup.
10:32We'll see what we can do.
10:33And you're working with Dana on this.
10:35Correct.
10:35How's that dynamic?
10:36Easy.
10:36Really?
10:38Dana White is a builder, has a great eye for promotion, understands what the consumer wants.
10:46You know, I'm more on the business side of things and making sure that things are situated there.
10:51So similar to Triple H and myself on the WWE side, I'm not sort of crafting the matches for this
10:57weekend's WrestleMania show.
10:58He and I will talk them through.
11:00He'll, you know, ask me for my point of view and I'll certainly offer it.
11:04But he runs that side.
11:06And the growth for WWE is where I know, taking some certain bouts international.
11:11And we, but you always, when he spoke at World Congress a few years ago, you wanted to keep most
11:15of them North America.
11:17Yeah.
11:17And by the way, that was then, this is now.
11:20So, you know, our thinking always evolves, or at least we always try to evolve it.
11:25So we did Royal Rumble, which is one of our biggest events in Saudi this past February 1.
11:31We're doing WrestleMania next year in Saudi.
11:34First time ever WrestleMania will be outside of the United States or Canada.
11:38And we've had a big fruitful partnership with them.
11:41So for international properties, we realized years ago, we can't simply pipe out American content internationally.
11:47You've got to be boots on the ground.
11:49And if you look at our revenue from international now, it's substantially greater than it was five and a half
11:53years ago.
11:54What will it mean to have that in Saudi?
11:57Look, I think it means a lot.
11:58Even if you look at the European tours that we've been out, we went on one early this year.
12:03We're going again this summer.
12:04We're constantly breaking venue records when we go.
12:08You know, it doesn't have to be only here.
12:11And what we found is that our fans will tune in.
12:14We're internationally on Netflix.
12:16United States on ESPN Unlimited, their new D2C program.
12:20Right.
12:20People are tuning in sort of no matter where we go.
12:22So we hope it's safe.
12:23So there's no anger or pushback by taking one of your biggest events to Saudi.
12:28Well, look, I don't I've never read X or Twitter as it relates to our business.
12:34And I've certainly never read it regarding me.
12:37That is a vocal minority.
12:40It's sort of like, again, for the above 50 crowd in the room.
12:42If you remember, like comment and complaint cards at restaurants, people only filled out the complaint.
12:47If their usher sucked.
12:49Correct.
12:50Right, right, right, right, right.
12:50There are a lot of them.
12:51Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:52Right. And by the way, we get, you know, I'm BCC'd on every email that comes into our fan service,
12:56you know, email address, as is Chris LeGentle, who's our head of comms and has a talent.
13:02And, you know, some of the complaints are, I didn't like the match.
13:05You know, you guys are pieces of shit or whatever.
13:08Okay, okay.
13:09I got it.
13:10Some are, hey, we had an obstructed view.
13:12Okay, we'll have you come to our next show.
13:14People are allowed to complain, but we don't adjust our business based on complaint.
13:19We adjust our business based on ratings, revenue, relevancy, which.
13:23The three R's.
13:24The three R's, which was created by Jamie Horowitz, by the way, who's somewhere around here.
13:27Question here from the audience, WWE more profitable than ever.
13:31What steps are being taken to preserve the experience as prices go up and being a fan is more expensive
13:37than ever?
13:38So here's the challenge, and I'll tell you a mistake we made with Canelo Crawford.
13:42We wanted to make sure the upper bowl stadium show in the United States, they had done a couple at
13:46AT&T Stadium, but they hadn't done many over the last number of decades.
13:51So we wanted to make sure the upper bowl was priced family friendly.
13:54As soon as we put them on sale, the upper bowl was sold out in three minutes.
13:59It wasn't sold out to families.
14:01It was sold out to third party ticket brokers.
14:03So we priced it, I think, the cheapest seats at $35.
14:07A day later on the third party broker websites, they were $75 selling.
14:12So the marketplace dictates the ticket price.
14:15So that's hence.
14:15That's it.
14:16So you look at the secondary as the marketplace and adjust accordingly for the primary.
14:20Correct.
14:21Okay.
14:21If you could build a sports, if you could build a sport from scratch today, what would you do differently
14:28to make it a premium media property?
14:32Any sport you're saying?
14:34Yep.
14:34If you could build a sport from scratch today.
14:37I think when you see the success of darts in the UK, for example, anyone who's been to a bar
14:45in the United States, like a regular bar, you see it.
14:49People are playing it, you know, men and women of all ages, but it's never been done right on TV,
14:54just like I don't think surfing's been done right on TV.
14:57Surfing you could do with drone cameras now.
14:59You couldn't do it with cameras on the beach.
15:01You want to be able to see the individuals.
15:03Go figure.
15:04In individual sports, the individuals matter.
15:06Right?
15:07So when Tiger, you know, has his unfortunate incident and is not going to be at the Masters, it's disappointing
15:12to people because Tiger Woods, people want him in the Masters.
15:15So if you can build up the individual stars, if you do darts with the right kind of promoter, that's
15:21interesting to me.
15:21It's not going to be a massive business, but it's an interesting business.
15:26From your experience with talent, what do you wish you would have known earlier on?
15:31From your experience with talent, what do you wish you would learn earlier on?
15:35I mean, I think I had the good fortune of learning it pretty early.
15:38Number one, business comes first.
15:40If a relationship develops, greater relationship develops, but you always have to deliver the goods.
15:45And if you can do that as an agent, consistently deliver the goods to your client, you're not going to
15:50lose a lot of clients.
15:51A couple of quotes that you say about where you work in your culture.
15:55Quote, you'll never hear us complain that we're tired.
15:58We can outwork you.
16:02What I hear from people, it's weird, it's weird elevator talk now.
16:05A lot of times you'll see someone, hey, how you doing?
16:07They're like, busy, busy.
16:10I'm like, well, you're supposed to be busy.
16:12Like, how about I'm doing great.
16:14How are you doing?
16:14So busy.
16:15It's very like strange to me.
16:17And then you'll hear people say like tired, man.
16:19What does that mean?
16:19You're working hard?
16:20Like, who's not tired who works hard?
16:23And by the way, if you want to make a lot of money, show me the job where you can
16:26make a lot of money and not work hard.
16:27I'm happy to go take it.
16:29I haven't seen that job anywhere.
16:32So you're going to work the iPhone.
16:34And before that, the Blackberry ruined it for everybody in this room.
16:37Again, I keep going to the plus 50 crowd.
16:40You remember 20 years ago, if someone called you at home Tuesday night at 9 PM, it was, let's say
16:45Defcon 2.
16:46Now it's just Tuesday night at 9 PM.
16:48And if you don't answer the phone, someone else is going to be there to answer the phone.
16:52So I'll make one guarantee about everyone in this room.
16:54Just one guarantee.
16:56Last thing you do, you look at your phone at night.
16:59First thing you do, and you may try to delay it.
17:01I'm going to watch my face and freshen up.
17:03And then I'm going to look at my phone.
17:04So everyone's day is like 6 AM to 11 PM.
17:07That's just the way it is.
17:09So it's going to be more tiring than it was.
17:11I'm just not a fan of hearing that complaint.
17:13And you're not a fan of the reply on the email.
17:17I'm out of the office.
17:22Please don't ever do that if you're working with me.
17:25And when I see people do that, and by the way, the super successful people that I've been around, including
17:33the people in this room, you never see the signature block on their emails that has their title.
17:41No.
17:42No, like on Howie's email, it doesn't say Howie Nuchau, founder, co-founder and co-head CA Sports.
17:49It just says, hey, thanks, Howie.
17:51Same with Vino.
17:53So I always feel like the people who are trying to prove themselves a little much are like, you know,
17:57I'm director two of this, that.
17:59And that's fine if that's what you want to do.
18:01But eventually you want your name to speak for itself.
18:03And if I email you something and you send me an out of office reply, I only have intermittent access
18:09to email.
18:09Like, where are you that you only have this intermittent access?
18:12And why, if I need something, are you telling me, don't bother me?
18:16Wouldn't I just go to somebody else who could help me with that?
18:19So at WWE, and by the way, I get it, people need their vacation time.
18:23They got to catch their breaths.
18:24We always make it a point at graduation time to go around to the folks, especially on our crew, and
18:31say,
18:31I don't want to hear about anyone missing in graduation because you have to do SmackDown or do Raw.
18:35Tell us.
18:36You make sure you get the day off and do what you got to do.
18:39But at the same time, you know, out of office, I don't want to work.
18:43Then just don't work here.
18:44Go find that somewhere else.
18:46Do you feel that you're an empathetic boss?
18:49I do.
18:50Yep.
18:50I do.
18:52Now, by the way, I technically wasn't Matt Kramer and Tom Young's boss.
18:56I was their colleague, just like I consider Chris Legente a colleague of mine.
19:01I think if someone's going through something, I have high empathy.
19:04If they're tired, I don't have high empathy.
19:07So I guess it would be up to them to define that.
19:09The line of people waiting to work for Nick Khan starts at the door, right?
19:13All right.
19:14Let's talk about a few industry issues.
19:16Will Disney be different under this new leader, under Josh?
19:19Yes.
19:19How so?
19:20Look, I think Bob Iger goes down as certainly the top media executive of the modern era.
19:26It's not questionable to me.
19:27He came back when they needed him to come back.
19:30He did a phenomenal job.
19:32Josh tomorrow brings in a fresh point of view.
19:35Even if you look at, hey, quick, we're going to reorg.
19:38Hey, we have some reduction in force, the polite version of layoffs, right?
19:43We have to do that.
19:44So, hey, we're going to clean this up a little bit.
19:45We're going to synergize it a little more.
19:47So now you have a new person's vision.
19:49And by the way, if you listen to their last earnings call, so much of it before tomorrow was named
19:55the CEO was on the cruise lines and the theme parks and the hotels.
20:00The business has shifted.
20:02And they've shifted with it.
20:04And I think they put the right leader in charge.
20:06They had a lot of good options there.
20:08Jimmy Pataro's great.
20:09Dana Walden's great.
20:10Alan's great.
20:10But at the end of the day, they went with the guy who drove the most revenue.
20:14That's typically how it goes.
20:15Buzz is that ESPN will be spun off.
20:17What does that look like in your mind?
20:19Look, I think you just saw it successfully with NBCU and Versant.
20:23Versant.
20:24Yeah.
20:25And they made great hires at Versant with Matt Hong and other people.
20:30Let's see.
20:31It makes sense.
20:32You know, ESPN still brings in a ton of cash.
20:35It doesn't have the distribution it once did simply.
20:38But it still does bring a ton of top line and EBITDA.
20:40Money in is money in.
20:42Right, right.
20:42That's a cash cow business still.
20:45So we'll see.
20:46What is the market for on air talent these days?
20:49I think the market continues to be what it was five and a half years ago when I left that
20:53business, which is the middle class.
20:56And it's all relative, right?
20:57Because the middle class there makes a lot more than the middle class of the United States.
21:00But it's becoming more reflective of the U.S. economy.
21:03The middle is getting squeezed.
21:06The Greenies, Schefters, McAfee's, those folks will continue to make a ton of money and they deserve every penny.
21:16The people in the middle who are a little more fungible, I'm not sure.
21:19Just like five and a half years ago, I wasn't sure.
21:21Joe Buck.
21:23You know, again, these sort of like one-on-ones in what they do.
21:26That's what matters.
21:27And then on the lower end, hey, you need innings eaters to come in and do your show.
21:31So the volume people, they'll still be paid.
21:33What about you?
21:34I mean, WWE recently, the new media deals, which you're into, I think, what, year two or will we be
21:40starting?
21:40We're a year and three months in a year.
21:42Okay.
21:42So you're set for a while, but we know about the NFL going back in, PGA Tour, NHL, MLS.
21:48What's going to be the media rights landscape?
21:51Is there money for everybody?
21:53Listen, when you hear people say, you know, hey, forget the NFL.
21:56When you hear people say, yeah, we'd like to start conversations.
22:00These are the leagues.
22:00We'd like to start conversations early.
22:03It's like everyone knows what you're doing.
22:05You're trying to get out of this NFL middle wave that's coming up.
22:09Right.
22:09I don't know how successful that's going to be.
22:12I think you're going to see people wait to see what happens with this opt-out and whether it can
22:16go away by doing a new deal.
22:18Now, I think some will do new deals.
22:21I think some won't.
22:23And then we'll see once that all lands where everybody else ends.
22:25So you think a media company would do a new renewal with a property, even with the NFL still out
22:31there hanging?
22:32Tough.
22:32Okay.
22:33Okay.
22:33I'm saying the opposite.
22:34You're saying the opposite.
22:35Right, that's right.
22:35That's what I thought you were saying.
22:36All right.
22:36From the audience, WWE changed WrestleMania plans in regards to Cody Rhodes, Roman Reign, and The Rock after fan backlash
22:44was intense.
22:45While you don't monitor social media, what level of fan backlash is required for you to change plans for a
22:53major show?
22:55By the way, the plan was always how it ended up in Philly two years ago.
22:59Sometimes it's a predetermined outcome in wrestling.
23:01You want to throw the fans off.
23:03You want to let things bake.
23:05And then, boom, it ends up the way that we wanted it to end up.
23:08It never changed.
23:09That was just online rumors and gossip that we were changing.
23:12It never changed.
23:12We convinced Dwayne Johnson to come back.
23:15He's on our board of directors.
23:17It was a tag team match.
23:19He's about the same age I am.
23:20So two years ago, let's say he was 50.
23:22Right.
23:23You know, he was obviously in phenomenal shape.
23:25He did everything that we asked of him and then some.
23:28But that was always the result we were looking for.
23:30And do, but to the question, does anybody ever have to, does the gentle ever say, Nick, we are getting
23:35so hammered on this.
23:36We've got to make a change.
23:38We will never respond to social media criticism.
23:42Again, if ratings are down, if revenue's down, if relevancy's down, it's up to us.
23:48A year ago, we got together.
23:50Triple H, LeGentle, myself, a guy named Shawn Michaels who runs our developmental system, Hall of Fame wrestler.
23:57And we said, hey, look, we have John Cena on his retirement tour.
24:01Rock came back and now he's going to be filming Jumanji and Smashing Machine at the time.
24:07Our other big stars, CM Punk's 46.
24:10We got a number of men who are 40 years or older and they're performing at the high level.
24:14We got to accelerate the next generation of talent.
24:17So what do we need to do to accelerate it?
24:19Shawn Michaels said we need to take them on the road so they get the crowd response of a live
24:25crowd.
24:26That's part of what makes wrestling unique.
24:29If you're getting cheered, great.
24:31If you're getting booed, great.
24:32If there's no response, terrible.
24:34So you need that live crowd to figure that out.
24:36So we made the investment in that.
24:38And if you look at the acceleration of stars, even the opening match on Sunday night, a guy named Obafemi,
24:44former shot putter at the University of Alabama against Brock Lesnar.
24:48It's probably the most talked about match.
24:51We're on ESPN one and ESPN unlimited Sunday.
24:54So it'll be simulcast.
24:56We're starting with one of our bigger matches, that match.
24:58And that guy's only been Oba on our main roster for six months.
25:02You see the time.
25:03Let's do a couple quick hitters.
25:05Perfect.
25:06What are you better at now than you were 15 years ago?
25:10Empathy.
25:11Empathy.
25:12That's obvious.
25:14That read through.
25:15My wife and I have a 14-year-old daughter.
25:17We have a 10-year-old son.
25:18So I think I've done a good job, which I think all working parents tried to do.
25:23I think I've done a good job when I come home.
25:26It's, hey, how's everybody here?
25:28How was your day?
25:29How was the dentist?
25:31How was school?
25:32You know, this and that.
25:33The things that I think, again, when people in this room who are working hard, you got to try to
25:39make that conscious effort.
25:40Because you could have just been beaten up all day, or you could be thinking about other things.
25:44Nobody at home should hear that nonsense.
25:46And the people, again, in this room who I've seen really succeed, I don't see them taking that stuff home.
25:50So I think I've gotten better at that now that we've had children.
25:53What's next for Nick Khan?
25:55What's next is what's now.
25:57You love it.
25:57We have WWE.
25:59We have Zufa.
25:59We got to get Zufa to where we need it to be.
26:01That's going to be a lot of work for all of us, but we're excited about it.
26:05And then, you know, we'll take it from there.
26:07For everyone in this room, any headwinds or concerns you see about continued growth of sports?
26:15Only for the ones in the middle.
26:18You know, I don't know what happens to the MAC conference.
26:21And that's not to begrudge them.
26:24SEC is going to be in great shape.
26:25Big Ten is going to be in great shape.
26:27Continue to be impressed by Brett Yormark and how he came into the Big 12 and basically decimated the Pac
26:33-12 and some other things and said basically, I want to be the third best conference.
26:38And got Colorado in.
26:40Dion had the hot hand at that time.
26:42So, love what they've done.
26:43I do think, you know, consolidation in college sports makes sense, but I think it's tougher to get the college
26:50sports folks there than...
26:52And real quick, are there too many leagues out there?
26:56Look, when things are offering, when programming is offered up for free and it doesn't resonate, there's probably too many
27:03things.
27:03But that's, you know, this Padel League, pickleball league.
27:09I think a lot of people want to try to replicate the UFC's success of what we can create a
27:13new sport.
27:13I haven't seen it done since they did it.
27:17But we'll see.
27:19For the Chief Empathy Officer, give it up for Nick Khan today.
27:23I want to thank you very much.
27:25Thank you for listening to this episode of On Stage.
27:28If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to subscribe, leave us a review and share it with colleagues interested in
27:33sports, media, entertainment and leadership.
27:36Here's a thought to take with you.
27:37In a crowded content landscape, what makes a brand or experience truly indispensable to fans?
27:44I'd love to hear your perspective.
27:45Send me a note at tbloom at sportsbusinessjournal.com.
27:48We'll be back in two weeks with another conversation from the stage featuring leaders shaping the future of sports business.
27:54Until next time, stay tuned and stay ahead.
27:57This is On Stage.
28:08.
Comments