Despite speculation from last year’s rounds of cuts in both talent and front office staff, WWE president Nick Khan said they are not in active conversations to sell the company.
Khan went into details as to why some of the major changes inside WWE were made, centering around his feeling that some lacked knowledge of media intricacies and didn’t have the attitude that WWE is a global content company.
“Vince (McMahon) believed that WWE was at a place where it had earned a seat at the adult table, but others in the company didn’t see it that way,” Khan told John Ourand.
He went on to say, “For the company to be treated the way that Vince, Stephanie (McMahon), Kevin Dunn and myself and others believed it should be treated in the community, you needed executives who reflected that, who had range, who could get people on the phone and who could be taken seriously by their peers.”
Khan didn’t address any of the talent layoffs, nor did he name specific executives or departments for who he was referring to.
The article focused on WWE’s deals with external partners like A&E, Netflix and Blumhouse Media for various documentaries and series, in addition to the strategy of putting out their major live event schedule in advance. The move of some of those big shows to Saturdays, like this week’s Royal Rumble, was also cited.
WWE announced they are partnering with Spotify’s The Ringer on a new podcast network that will see Bill Simmons’ group expand their pro wrestling coverage.
As part of the deal, The Ringer and WWE will work together on new original podcasts which include a narrative series produced by Simmons and MackMania, a series from The Bump co-host Evan Mack.
Additionally, various hosts will utilize Spotify’s Greenroom feature to go live after every major WWE pay-per-view with the final “room” being converted into podcasts for The Ringer Wrestling Show, the now-renamed Masked Man Show that is co-hosted by David Shoemaker and Kaz. The Greenroom experience begins this weekend with SummerSlam in Las Vegas.
The podcasts will be exclusive to both Spotify and The Ringer’s website. Any existing WWE podcasts from the Endeavor Audio era will move exclusively to Spotify as part of the deal.
Simmons is a lifelong pro wrestling fan and has worked with WWE before on the Andre The Giant documentary for HBO Films. He is also an executive producer on the upcoming Vince McMahon documentary series for Netflix.
In compliance with SEC regulations, WWE filed a proxy statement Tuesday prior to their impending annual shareholder meeting — the contents of which revealed last year’s compensation for their directors and their board including president and chief revenue officer Nick Khan, Vince McMahon, Stephanie McMahon and Paul Levesque.
Last year, Khan earned $13 million, made up of a prorated base $498,462 salary; $6.8 million in stock; $471,823 in incentives; and $5.19 million in other compensation (signing bonus). His base pay for 2021 will be $1.2 million in addition to $1.9 million in performance incentives.
The bonus is subject to repayment requirements if he leaves “without good reason” or is fired. If that was to happen within the first year, he has to repay all of it; between 12-24 months: $3.1 million; and between 24-36 months: $1.2 million.
He also received a signing bonus of performance-based stock units valued at $15 million. 40% of those PSUs will vest in September 2022 with the other 60% vesting in 2025. Also worked into his contract is that if he is fired without cause in those first five years, he gets the remainder of his yearly base for however many years are left on the deal. He also would be subject to repaying relocation expenses if he leaves on his own or is fired without cause in his first 12 months.
Vince McMahon
The chairman earned $3.9+ million in 2020 made up of $1.4 in base salary, $1.63 million in stock awards, $854,000 in incentives, and $20,000 in other compensations. That total is down from 2018’s $5.6+ million and 2019’s $3.5+ million.
As CEO, McMahon’s total compensation was a 38-to-1 ratio of the total compensation for the median WWE employee ($102,577). That ratio disclosure is required by the SEC.
McMahon and his immediate family also gets use of the company jet for personal travel when it’s not being used for business. However, any costs in doing so are paid for by him so WWE doesn’t have to cover it.
He also owns 92.3% of the company’s Class B shares.
Paul Levesque
Levesque earned $2.38+ million last year with a $730,000 base, $464,778 in stock awards, $222,650 in incentives and just under $1 million in other compensation which was his performance and merchandise contract. The number is down from 2018’s $5 million and from 2019’s $3.3 million.
Stephanie McMahon
McMahon earned $2.8+ million on a $730,000 base, $464,778 in stock, $222,650 in incentives, $775,723 in other compensation for her performer/merchandise contract. The number is slightly up from 2019’s $2.07 million.
Other notes:
Shane McMahon has a performer’s deal that paid him a minimum of $820,369.
Both Connor Schell (former ESPN EVP, co-creator of 30 for 30) and Steve Koonin (CEO of the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks and the State Farm Arena) were announced as members of their Board.
Of Board members, the highest compensation of cash and stock was Jeff Speed at $236,384 followed by Stuart Goldfarb at $224,516 and Laureen Ong at $208,884.
WWE paid CAA $5.8 million last year “for commissions on certain licenses and management recruitment fees.” CAA was Khan’s old agency where he negotiated the various TV contracts.
Investment firm Lindsell Train Limited owns 23% of Class A shares, followed by Vanguard Group and BlackRock that both have significant holdings in WWE.
Officers and directors own a combined 41% of both Class A and B shares.
Their management incentive plan (MIP) payouts (between 50-100% of salary) are based on a point system on the following personal and company-wide performance metrics: 40% strategic objectives (viewership with a benchmark of certain key TV ratings); 40% for the next iteration of WWE Network (acquiring a domestic network license); 10% for sponsorship business opportunities; and 10% for brand strength measurements (increasing WWE ratings among sports fans). Based on that, funding for those payouts was down to a 5.0 for an overall score, down from 6.7 in 2019 and 8.7 in 2018. That meant there was less money given out to executives for performance bonuses.
Citing multiple sources, Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston tweeted Thursday that a large number of WWE employees are being given a $3000 stock award that fully vests in March.
The news comes roughly a week after the company told employees there would be no impending raises, bonuses and promotions coming, understandably causing some negative feelings as a result. It’s unknown whether the stock award was directly tied into the unhappiness after the announcement.
Thurston noted not all employees are getting the award.
Dave Meltzer said the reason for the initial decision was that WWE missed their stock price target despite the company announcing record-setting revenues and a new $1+ billion deal for WWE Network to move to NBCU’s Peacock streaming service in March. Those revenues came even with the pandemic taking away live gates.
In an unrelated story, WWE President Nick Khan acquired 10,464 shares of WWE stock according to an SEC filing. The value of those shares as of Thursday’s close was $494,633 ($47.27).
While the name Michael Mansury isn’t one known to most WWE fans, his work likely is as the Vice President of Global Television Production was the director for many WWE TV shows and pay-per-view events.
First reported by PWInsider and later confirmed by Dave Meltzer, Mansury is no longer with the company as of last week after giving his notice several months ago. The reasons for his departure are unknown.
Why this move is significant is that Mansury was seen by some as the eventual replacement for Vince McMahon right hand man and executive VP Kevin Dunn. PWInsider noted that with Mansury and Kerwin Silfies’ recent departures, Dunn and Marty Miller, also a WWE director, will be handling the broadcasts.
Mansury, a 2005 graduate of Hofstra University, had been with WWE since 2009 when he started as a production assistant and was named VP in March 2016. Prior to that, he spent a year as a PA for MTV3.
Variety reported Tuesday that ESPN and Fox have proposed a multi-network approach to televise the UFC once the organization’s existing deal with Fox runs out.
According to the report, ESPN’s contribution would be between $120-$180 million a year while Fox would increase its yearly commit to just over $200 million, coming somewhat closer to the reported $400 million a year owners Endeavor were looking for when they purchased the organization for more than $4 billion.
What’s in it for ESPN?
While much maligned in the media due to the rise in cord cutting over the past few years, the Disney-owned sports entity is betting big on the future of their OTT service, ESPN+. The service launched last week for $4.99 a month and the deal would bring up to 15 live events to the platform, according to the report.
What’s in it for Fox?
If you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of UFC on both Fox Sports One and Fox Sports Two, both in live event programming, replays, and hours upon hours of “shoulder” programming. While the report says their overall amount of shows would decline, they certainly wouldn’t be paying $200 million a year to have the amount of shows decline by that much.
All of this comes at an interesting time for both companies considering their recent deal in which many Fox-owned properties were sold to Disney. The two share co-ownership rights on several college football properties int addition to Major League Soccer.
So, what about PPV?
The piece didn’t mention how any of this would affect the company’s PPV future. Fans know that the company’s offerings last year and this year have waned in value, outside a few big exceptions, due to injuries, missed weight cuts, and light card depth. If two companies were involved in the rights, one would have to think some of those borderline PPVs would change to live events instead with an emphasis on bigger PPVs with the company’s bigger draws.
So, what about Fight Pass?
The company has taken a much different attitude toward Fight Pass than when they hired former Rivals.com head Eric Winter several years ago. (He left shortly after the Endeavor purchase.) While they still air a few exclusive shows and a few fights on fight nights, it’s essentially just access to a tape library and live events from regional promotions. Endeavor recently purchased streaming provider Neulion for $250 million, leading to speculation the company might just move everything onto their own OTT platform. If the ESPN/Fox alliance comes through, fans can at least hope for better quality streaming than they are accustomed to now, especially with the archived footage.
So, what about WWE?
The other factor is all of this is WWE who has reportedly been courted by Fox. This potential move doesn’t necessarily kill that as the “new” Fox is moving quickly toward more live event/sports programming on their remaining properties. It might affect the money offered in a deal, but with new Disney cash, that still might be another big splash they want to make.
