Ari Emanuel, Larry Ellison, and the Gulf Triangle
Inside the Silent Geometry Shaping the $70B+ Battle for Warner Bros Discovery.
“The trick is to keep your head clear and your eyes open, even while the world tries to fog both.”
— T. E. Lawrence
The Geometry of Influence
For years, Hollywood convinced itself that power lived in conference rooms, shareholder calls, and the marble floors of studio headquarters. But the real influence, the kind that rewrites entire industries, rarely announces itself. It moves like a shadow across continents, weaving through stadiums in Abu Dhabi, executive suites in Doha, and private dinners in Riyadh.
When Variety revealed that Skydance Paramount’s $71B bid for Warner Bros Discovery was supported by three Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, the industry gasped. But I did not. I have spent the past decade studying the architecture behind these moments, the invisible geometry that decides which media conglomerates rise and which ones crumble into dust.
The involvement of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi was not an accident. It was a signal. A flare fired into the sky for anyone who understands how global capital moves. There is a reason these three governments appeared in the same bid, in the same moment, behind the same play. And if you trace the lines long enough, through the smoke and the mirrors and the silence, you end at one man: Ari Emanuel.
Ari’s Middle East Oasis turned Bank
Before Ari ever tried to bring Gulf money in for Ellison, he needed Gulf money to keep his own world standing. Connie Bruck’s 2021 New Yorker profile lays out the trail. Through Marty Edelman and the Fertittas, Emanuel met Khaldoon Al Mubarak and the Abu Dhabi royal circle. Mubadala backed the $4.2 billion UFC acquisition. Mubadala also seeded the first Raine fund with roughly $100 million after that late-night walk in Spain. Those were not casual introductions. Those were legitimate lifelines.
When COVID hit in 2020 and arenas went dark, that relationship turned into survival. Abu Dhabi built the Yas Island bubble, paid for planes, hotels, medical staff, and wrote checks rich enough to make up for empty gates. Bruck’s reporting makes it simple. UFC became Endeavor’s saving grace while Hollywood shut down. Endeavor stayed liquid because a Gulf partner was willing to turn a resort island into a fight factory.
Later, after the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, Emanuel tried to redraw one of those lines. He unwound a $400 million Saudi investment in Endeavor at a premium and framed it as a moral choice. Even that move fits the same pattern. When a particular stream of capital became radioactive, he traded it out to protect the larger structure. The empire had to survive. The relationships that kept it alive could not all be sacrificed.
That history matters now. Ari traded away the old Hollywood base for sports properties like UFC and eventually WWE to keep his empire intact. He turned to Gulf money to stabilize that bet. With the Skydance bid and the $71 billion headline number, he is back in the same neighborhood, asking the same region to underwrite the next act. The map has not changed. The stakes have just transformed.
The Corridor Only a Few Can Walk
Ari’s influence across the Gulf is not conjecture; it is carved into the very foundation of global sports and entertainment. His network was shaped through the UFC’s expansion into Abu Dhabi’s global footprint, through Endeavor’s proximity to Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and through the long-term initiatives that IMG and WME nurtured in Qatar. These were not deals. They were pre-established bridges. Bridges that sovereign wealth funds rely on when they move billions into foreign markets.
David Ellison understood the value of those bridges long before the rest of the industry realized the game had changed. His ambition for Paramount was never about a merger. It was about crafting an entirely new model of American media: a hybrid forged from technology, global capital, and a generational view of cultural influence. And this is where alignment becomes destiny. Ellison’s vision intersects perfectly with the aspirations of the Gulf Triangle.
Polybius captured this kind of preparation with effortless precision:
“When the moment for action arrives, the wise have already prepared.”
— Polybius
Ellison prepared. Emanuel seemingly translated. And the Gulf has supposedly answered.
The Denial That Spoke Louder Than the News
Variety’s reporting on the $71B Skydance–Paramount bid for Warner Bros. Discovery landed like a flare on the horizon. Three Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds tied to the offer. Three capitals whose participation does not come cheaply and does not come without relationships that stretch far beyond the entertainment business.
Sources familiar with the talks made one thing clear. The connections behind that capital did not appear on their own. Ari Emanuel has long-standing ties across Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi. He publicly backed Ellison’s previous Paramount effort. The geography is not coincidence. It was prophesied.
Paramount responded with a denial. Precise. Expected. Corporate. But in this business, denials often mask structure, not truth. Multiple dealmakers familiar with the mechanics confirmed that a holding company can bring in sovereign capital without ever placing it on Paramount’s balance sheet. The denial becomes accurate, and the deal still moves. That is how billion-dollar bids survive the public eye. They move behind a different wall.
“The greater the power, the more carefully it hides its hand.”
— Cicero
This is the landscape we are actually navigating. Sovereign capital with long memories. Corporate entities with flexible definitions. Networks of influence braided together out of public view. The denial is not the story. The structure behind it is.
The Quiet Windfall No One Is Talking About
As negotiations have moved forward, more clarity has emerged around the numbers. Variety reported that a $71B package values Warner Bros. Discovery at roughly $28.63 per share, based on the company’s publicly reported share count of 2.48B shares.
Reporting from Puck, including work by Matt Belloni, helped set the earlier baseline by noting that David Ellison’s previous proposal sat below $25 a share. Multiple industry sources told me that Warner Bros. Discovery leadership has continued to signal an internal expectation closer to $30 per share, a figure that places the company’s ask near $74.4B, which aligns with valuation ranges tracked by other outlets. Put simply, Ellison has raised his number, but Zaslav’s target remains higher.
While the trades have focused on the headline bid, the most revealing detail surfaced in a very different setting. It emerged during an investor briefing delivered by TKO Group’s CFO, Andrew Schleimer. In that call, away from cameras and attention, Schleimer described a scenario that few outside the conversation had considered. If Warner Bros. Discovery ends up under a Paramount structure, TKO would receive incremental simulcast-related fees. Sources familiar with internal projections placed the potential windfall in the nine-figure dollar range.
It is the kind of detail that alters the temperature of an entire deal. Not because it shifts the bid itself, but because it exposes who stands to benefit from the realignment. When a merger creates new leverage, someone always profits. TKO is positioned to do exactly that. The empire does not need to own the battlefield in order to profit from the conflict. It only needs the battlefield to tilt in the direction it anticipated.
This is where the shape of the story changes. The Gulf triangle explains the capital. The simulcast windfall explains the stakes. Empires do not rise because of public declarations. They rise because of quiet advantages. And this one has already been measured.
The Gulf Triangle’s Long Game
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Abu Dhabi are not investing for today. They are redesigning the next fifty years of cultural power. They seek influence, relevance, leverage, and a place in the global narrative that cannot be dismissed. Entertainment is their diplomatic language. Sports are their currency. Media IP is the crown jewel.
And in this environment, the United States is no longer the sole maker of the narrative. It is now one of many players in a geopolitical theatre where cultural influence determines future supremacy.
Thucydides captured the essence of this strategy long before our industry existed:
“The secret to power is knowing what others desire and offering it before they ask.”
— Thucydides
The Gulf understands America’s need for stability, capital, and expansion. Ellison offers structure. Emanuel offers access. Together, they offer inevitability.
The Architect in the Shadowlight
Ari Emanuel does not need to sit on a board or stand behind a podium to shape the future of an industry. His influence does not speak the language of authority; it speaks the language of access. He knows where the interests align. He knows which corridors connect and which doors remain locked to almost everyone else. He understands how sovereign funds think, what they pursue, and how they measure the value of long-term cultural assets.
This isn’t a random conspiracy being woven. It’s just business competence. The kind of competence that reshapes markets.
Baltasar Gracián articulated this kind of power with a clarity that fits this moment:
“Influence is more powerful than authority, for it shapes the will long before commands are given.”
— Baltasar Gracián
Ari does not command the deal. But he did clear the path that made the deal possible.
Where the Fault Line Finally Breaks
If Paramount Skydance acquires WBD, the shift will be seismic. AEW’s future becomes increasingly shaky. UFC and WWE gain new channels of distribution. Paramount’s architecture transforms. The broadcast landscape reorganizes around a smaller set of global players who possess both the capital and the cultural reach to dominate entertainment for decades.
Hollywood believed the streaming wars were the final battle. They were only the opening act. The next era belongs to global investment coalitions that merge financial power, political ambition, and entertainment IP into a single entity. Skydance, WBD, and Paramount are simply the first intersection in a much larger shift.
The balance of power is no longer an American story.
It is now a global one.
Ultima Sententia: The Shape of the Future
Every empire believes its reign is secured by scale, that the size of its walls protects it. That its years of dominance guarantee tomorrow. But scale has never been the true measure of power. The real measure is who can shape the conditions under which others must operate. And in this new landscape, the conditions are not being written in Hollywood. They are being written across oceans.
Ari Emanuel did not create the Gulf Triangle that is secretly invading American soil. But he understands it.
David Ellison did not invent this moment. But he is positioned to seize and strike gold when opportunity presents.
“The tide of history flows forward, never back, and those who stand still are swept away.”
— Sun Yat-sen
Warner Bros Discovery is not just an acquisition target. It is the first domino in a far larger chain. What comes next is not consolidation; it will be seen as redefinition. Because the world is shifting. And those who do not shift with it will be swallowed by the tide. Chaos is here.
But the story is only beginning.
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Blake Avignon is the pseudonym of a strategist and media executive who has worked across the UFC, F1, MLB, NBA, and NFL: building brands, brokering partnerships, and reshaping the future of sports and entertainment from the inside.
Insanely high quality content. Bravo