TKO's 2025 UFC & WWE plan: submission by suffocation strategy

Anywhere where there's a media monopoly, Mark Shapiro will be there.

As nostalgic old-school wrestling fans rejoiced at the return of Saturday Night’s Main Event with Jesse Ventura on NBC last Saturday night, one person’s Name, Image, and Likeness was conspicuous by its absence on SNME: the guy with the formerly 24-inch pythons.

But don’t worry, Hulk Hogan wasn’t persona non grata in TKO land. He was laughably hyping up Colby Covington in Tampa alongside Chael Sonnen. Truth, justice, and the American way.

Between WWE on NBC, UFC in Tampa with a $3 million gate, and Travis Hunter winning the Heisman Trophy on ESPN, you would be hard pressed to find anyone talking about anything else sports related on a Saturday night.

Tony Khan who? The man who’s fledgling AEW Collision wrestling show is spiraling down the toilet in ratings.

The NBA? They drew less fans for their Emirates Cup in-season thingamajig at T-Mobile Arena than the TKO office did for UFC 310. NBA ratings are down in the dumps and the only compelling national story is LeBron and the Lakers.

In the return of Trump to the White House, no one is better positioned in the sports and entertainment landscape to exploit American culture, politics, and monopolistic institutions than Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro. As we recently laid out in our MMA Draw Podcast on UFC Business for 2025, Mark Shapiro sees himself as promoting the combat sports version of Crest toothpaste.

TKO’s Triple Monopoly marrying other monopolies

With upcoming media rights negotiations between TKO and ESPN in January, we’re going to have some pretty good insight as to how much of the UFC rights package Disney will be able to keep.

We’re also going to get into the details of exactly who owns TKO’s massive debt.

Once you see who is pulling the puppet strings, you will never look at fight sports the same way ever again.