Tony Khan Placed $6.9 Billion Bid For WWE In 2023 Sale Process
Tony Khan’s company made an offer for WWE.
An exclusive story was posted to POST Wrestling via Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics. It has to do with AEW/ROH owner Tony Khan bidding for WWE in 2023 when the company was in its sale process, which ultimately went to Endeavor and went under the TKO umbrella.
According to court filings, Base 10, a company backed by Tony Khan, placed a bid on WWE in 2023.
TKO is currently the subject of an ongoing shareholder lawsuit. The complaint and legal responses from the defendants have been redacted. The identities of the bidders were revealed, and in addition to Khan’s Base 10 company, Liberty Media and private equity firm KKR bid on WWE. It was understood that Liberty Media and KKR had placed bids, but the unredacted information confirmed it.
Tony Khan is not mentioned by name in the complaint, but Base 10 and All Elite Wrestling are. The complaint reads:
Base 10 is the owner of All Elite Wrestling, a professional wrestling promotion that plainly would enjoy significant synergies with WWE.
Florida business records show that BASE10, Inc. was incorporated in 2014, and Tony Khan is listed as the sole officer, and the company’s address is the NFL Jacksonville Jaguars stadium, which the Khan family owns. A Sports Business Journal piece quoted Khan in 2015 when he talked about Base 10.
POST Wrestling reached out to Khan, AEW, WWE, TKO, and KKR. Khan and KKR both declined to make a statement, and there was no response from the other parties.
Below were the offers for WWE:
- Base 10: $6.9 billion
- KKR: $8.0 billion to $8.7 billion
- Liberty Media: $8.5 billion to $8.9 billion
- Endeavor: $8.5 billion
When the SEC filings were sent out after the merger, the identities of the bidders were protected via pseudonyms. Base10 also indicated to WWE that it would need equity and debt financing partners to complete a transaction with WWE.
It is unknown if AEW’s status as a WWE competitor was a factor in Base 10 not advancing in the bidding process.
NBCUniversal, Disney, Amazon, Netflix, and the Saudi Arabian government did not place a bid for WWE.
Vince McMahon, WWE President Nick Khan, Chief Content Officer Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque, and former WWE Board members Michelle Wilson and George Barrios are the defendants in the aforementioned shareholders’ class action lawsuit. The trial is set to begin in June.
