Nick Khan has called the allegations against Vince McMahon ‘horrific and serious’
In January, a lawsuit alleging cases of sex trafficking, emotional abuse, and sexual assault was brought against WWE, Vince McMahon and John Laurinaitis by Janel Grant. The case rocked the TKO Group and meant that company sponsors were pulling out of their association with WWE until McMahon was removed, and many were wondering whether the allegations would have an affect on the company’s Netflix deal, announced just days before the claims came to light.
Appearing on The Town with Matthew Belloni, WWE President Nick Khan clarified that the allegations against Vince wouldn’t have killed the deal with Netflix, but they definitely wouldn’t have helped either. He labels the case against McMahon ‘horrific and serious’, though Khan states that the streaming service didn’t play a part in McMahon resigning.
“I don’t know about ‘kill’ but it certainly wouldn’t have helped the deal (Khan said about Vince McMahon allegations). So those allegations are obviously horrific and serious and we take them and interpret them the same way I think every other reasonable person or organization would take them and you saw the quick resignation… No (Netflix did not tell us to make McMahon resign). Not in any way, shape or form… No (Vince is not involved in any way). Zero. As a stockholder as I’m a stockholder (is the only way he’s involved). Zero, zero, zero. By the way, he chose to resign. So, there was no litigation. As you said, there was no threat in litigation.”
-Nick Khan
Speaking more in-depth about the Netflix deal, Nick revealed that Netflix weren’t original thrilled with the idea of producing live content, but the path to agreeing a deal with fairly straightforward once all the parties were in the same room.
“Ari Emanuel, Mark Shapiro were in touch with Netflix. The initial feedback to them was, ‘Eh, we don’t really wanna get into live and we don’t wanna produce and get production trucks…’ WWE is a turnkey operation. We produce all of our own content, so I got a call from Ari and Mark saying, ‘Hey, let’s just go in and see them’ and as you know, once you’re in the room, you have a chance to get people to do things that they might not otherwise do. So it was a quick process. Bela Bajaria, Gabe Spitzer, a bunch of other folks there across it and ultimately approved by all of the heads at Netflix and here we are. Never (did I hear that Netflix co-CEO’s were split on bringing WWE on board). I think they managed their internal disagreement at the time quite well. They kept it away from us and all we heard once we went in for that initial pitch meeting, so Ari, Mark, myself, Andrew Schleimer, who’s the C.F.O. of TKO and Triple H, once we went in for that initial pitch meeting, it was clear that there was a path here. We never heard anything negative.”
-Nick Khan
With Netflix lined up, many fans are wondering whether the backlog of WWE content which currently resides on Peacock in the USA will move over to Raw’s new streaming service when their current deal with Peacock expires. When the host asked about this, Khan said that the rights are up for discussion in March of 2026, just before WrestleMania 42 which is something they are currently working out.
“Well specifically, they’re (Peacock rights) up March of ‘26 and for the wrestling fans out there, that means a month before WrestleMania 2026 which, you know, we like the timing of that… Indoors or maybe a little later in April. We’re going through that now (Khan said about WrestleMania 2026)… (Host mentions idea of it coming back to SoFi Stadium) C’mon, too much, too much outdoor. Outdoor, early April. So, we love the NBCU folks. They truly have been great. We were one of the first people, I think, who bought into Peacock. Our incumbent is always our priority. They’re the incumbent on the Premium Live Event deal, the Peacock deal and we’ll see what they have to say when the time is right… That’s never a bad thing (to want to maximize our money).”
-Nick Khan
WWE’s deal with Netflix, seeing Monday Night Raw move to the streaming service, will come into affect in 2025 and last for 10 years. With the media rights for all three weekly shows having been distributed in recent months and the Peacock deal up in two years, it’s certain that the removal of Vince McMahon will make any future negotiations easier.
As always, we’ll aim to provide any further updates on the Vince McMahon allegations and WWE’s media rights as soon as we hear more.
H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription.
