TKO president confirms restructuring of WWE and UFC athlete compensation

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TKO President and COO Mark Shapiro spoke this week at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference. While answering a question about future talent costs, Shapiro said the pay structure for WWE’s wrestlers and UFC’s fighters was revised following their billion dollar deals with ESPN and Paramount, respectively. Here is how Shapiro worded it (via Fightful) while trying to assure investors that future expenses are under control: “What I would tell you is post our new deals with ESPN on WWE and with Paramount+, CBS, Peacock, Sky with UFC, and even a little bit post Raw with Netflix, we did resize our fighter and superstar pay composition. That is baked into our numbers. So there will be no further adverse impact with regard to how that plays out or divvies out. We’re confident with where we sit. We have 600 fighters as an example in our stable at the UFC. We do, to your point, really rely on development. Keep in mind that when you look at the WWE, 75% of the superstars come from NXT. So they’re starting in our development league and going all the way up. So pipeline is very important to our strategy.” Shapiro’s remarks are catching the attention of wrestling fans after last week’s story where the former New Day members said one reason why they left WWE is because they were asked to take more than a 50% pay cut. Meanwhile, TKO executive pay seems to only be going up. What’s your reaction to Shapiro’s comments on TKO adjusting wrestler pay in WWE and relying so much on in-house development? Let me know in the comments below, Cagesiders.

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TKO President Mark Shapiro has revealed that both WWE and UFC contracts have been resized to seemingly improve the company's profitability.