Paramount Wins WBD: 5 Things Fight Fans Should Know
This is a big big deal, but maybe not as big as we think
The Ellison Family media empire has been trying to buy Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) since September.
For months, it looked like Netflix would walk away with the prize.
Today, Paramount made an offer that WBD accepted, and Netflix declined to match it.
It is widely believed that support from the Trump administration was a factor in Paramount winning the deal rather than Netflix.
Game over.
Paramount “wins.”
Why should fight fans care?
Here are five reasons, plus one other thing we think is funny and worth mentioning.
TKO Competitors Have One Less Media Company to Partner With
WBD owns some storied brands that have been or are players in sports: HBO, TNT Sports, TBS, Turner, and Bleacher Report.
Having Paramount make massive inroads internationally, plus TKO’s favorable relations with Netflix, means Ari Emanuel & Mark Shapiro are in the catbird’s seat. Redbird Capital’s footprint gains even larger strength.
While no rule says Paramount couldn’t sign PFL to a streaming deal with TNT, extend and expand AEW’s deal with TBS, and bring boxing back to HBO via a partnership with some combination of Top Rank, Golden Boy, PBC, or Matchroom, it doesn’t seem very likely, does it?
Netflix is airing WWE RAW & big Zuffa Boxing/Riyadh Season fights, including the April 11th Tottenham fight with Tyson Fury & Conor Benn. ESPN Unlimited is airing WWE PLEs like Wrestlemania. Sky Sports is rumored to be a future home of Zuffa Boxing in the UK. Sky was recently purchased by Comcast, which has had good relations with Nick Khan (via WWE’s old home, Peacock). USA Network airs Smackdown. Paramount airs UFC events.
It’s a long-winded way of saying that TKO has managed to create so many relationships and interconnected tie-ups in media and financing that competitors will struggle to penetrate the giant wall of thorns Ari Emanuel has sown around American media players.
Tony Khan and AEW Can’t Be Happy
Speaking of AEW, the closest thing to a legitimate competitor for TKO/WWE in the sports entertainment field, this is terrible news for them and their boss, Tony Khan.
AEW’s deal with WBD to be featured on TNT and HBO started last year and is set to last through 2027, with an option for an additional year.
While WWE’s media rights are split between Netflix, Comcast/NBC, ESPN/Disney, and the CW, Paramount’s David Ellison has an extremely close relationship with TKO boss Ari Emanuel.
It’s hard to fathom that AEW will be a big priority at Paramount/WBD going forward.
What makes this worse is that TKO will likely be able to gain future access to AEW books and records. A books and records dispute is the reported basis for a fallout between Frank Warren, SELA, and TKO.
A recent CNN article admitted that WBD has a minority ownership stake in AEW.
Why would Paramount actively promote a rival professional wrestling company that goes against the interests of Ari Emanuel? Fat chance.
If anything, Paramount getting access to AEW’s books and records could provide TKO an opportunity — hypothetically speaking, of course — to embarrass AEW about what the true terms and conditions are for their current WBD media rights deal. How much of this deal is cash vs. non-cash? What’s the real value? How much of that media rights value is WBD cycling back to itself?
TKO board member and WWE boss Nick Khan (no relation to Tony) could have some real fun with this development.
HBO’s International Reach Is Huge
HBO is available in over 100 countries with something like 128 million global subscribers.
One of the biggest downsides to the UFC signing with Paramount rather than Netflix is Paramount’s much smaller international footprint.
HBO potentially solves that problem and could help Paramount put UFC and Zuffa Boxing content in front of a greatly expanded global audience.
Paramount Must Move Fast
Given President Trump’s collapsing poll numbers and the ever-increasing likelihood of Democrats winning one or both houses of Congress in the mid-term elections, Paramount needs to clear all regulatory hurdles before the November elections.
Matt Stoller explained some of the stakes last week:
…a contact let me on to something odd about the Paramount approach: the company says it has mostly completed the extensive legal paperwork necessary to acquire WBD. And that’s both very weird and very important, for reasons I’ll get into, because it suggests Paramount’s people believe the fix is in, on their behalf.
…
There’s an additional problem for Paramount, and that’s the obvious censorship and cronyism. The Ellison’s are new to owning Paramount, having bought it last year. And in that time, they have taken a number of steps, including firing Stephen Colbert, that are obvious attempts to please Trump.
…
Democratic state officials will be more likely to challenge a Paramount deal, because of the obvious partisan cronyism going on.And that’s where the legal strategy of Paramount comes in. The company’s main antitrust lawyer is a savvy and cynical operator named Makan Delrahim. Delrahim is a close confidante of David Ellison, the son of Oracle founder and billionaire Larry Ellison, who is financing the deal. And Delrahim’s goal is to get the deal through before enforcers know what hit them.
It doesn’t help the merger’s prospects with Democratic lawmakers that a reported $25 billion of the money to buy WBD is being provided by the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar, although Paramount has denied that the Middle Eastern countries are involved.
The time crunch to get the Paramount merger approved pairs with TKO’s need to get the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act passed in a similar time frame. Team Trump, Team Ellison, and Team TKO want to move as fast as possible on both measures to maximize their market and political positions before control of the US government is divided in 2027.
Paramount and Daddy Oracle Piling on the Debt
When WBD rejected Paramount’s early January offer for the company, they scoffed in a press release that the $87 billion in debt would make the deal the “largest leveraged buyout in history.”
The winning offer is even bigger and presumably comes with even more debt.
That could be a problem since Oracle, the software titan that provides the foundation for the Ellison family empire, has dramatically increased the amount of debt it is carrying in the last year, announcing plans to borrow $50 billion to keep up in the AI wars.
Let’s take a look at the six-month stock chart for Oracle:
A picture is worth a thousand words. The Ellisons decided to leverage their name and fundraising — through mixed shelf financing in the form of equity and debt — and Sovereign Wealth Funds to sacrifice so much of their AI goodwill/investment… into a media company.
David Zaslav (and Maybe Netflix) The Huge Winner
As of December, the WBD CEO was reported to be set to clear a huge fortune in the sale:
Zaslav’s current stock holdings in Warner Bros. Discovery, along with future grants he is entitled to, would be worth around $660 million in the event the deal with Netflix goes through, CNBC reported. (Netflix and WBD anticipate the deal closing within 12-18 months.) All told, Zaslav would have a net worth topping $1 billion if Netflix wins the day, per Bloomberg. Note that those estimates are based on Netflix’s $27.75/share offer for only WB studios and HBO Max. Paramount’s hostile takeover bid of $30/share (which might go higher) would mean Zaslav’s payout will be even bigger if that deal prevails.
David Zaslav had presided over a massive collapse in shareholder value before the Ellisons announced their intentions to buy his empire, but now he’ll reap the biggest reward.
The last two years of WBD’s stock price tell the story. A stock that hit rock bottom at $8 is currently at $28 despite strong revenue headwinds. And now Paramount just bid $31 a share for it.
Which begs the question…
Was Netflix Ever Really Serious Anyway?
It’s widely known that Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos and Zaslav are close friends.
Did Netflix kayfabe the whole bidding war just to raise the asking price?
Of course not, but it sure would be funny if they did.
Nate Wilcox is Editor-in-Chief of The MMA Draw. He founded BloodyElbow.com in 2007 and sold it in 2024.
Zach Arnold is a lead opinion writer for The MMA Draw on Substack. His archives can be read at FightOpinion.com.
Great read here. I feel so guilty now having a Paramount plus subscription. One thing that gets me is that I watch all the Taylor Sheridan show trailers with an American/western themes is funded by so many Arabs.
The more I think about this, the more it feels like Netflix tricked Paramount. I won't be surprised if another sale happens in the next few years because of the huge debt.