TKO, the parent company of both UFC and WWE is all set to add another sports league to its profile very soon in association with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The American media conglomerate has been in talks with The Kingdom’s Public Investment Fund to launch a new boxing league according to New York Times. Per the site, Sela, a subsidiary of the Saudi PIF will be the major investor behind this league with TKO serving as the management entity.
Current UFC head Dana White is poised to be the managing partner for this new endeavour. TKO has been offered an equity stake and a share of the revenue in return of their services and they’ll earn a management fee of close to $30 million a year.
While an official statement from TKO on the matter claimed that they had ‘nothing to announce,’ the report suggests that this new partnership could be made official ‘within weeks.’ UFC’s US TV media rights deal with ESPN is set to expire this year and the combat sports giant could try to bundle the rights for the new boxing league with UFC to get it off the ground.
The Saudi government has backed some of the biggest boxing fights of history in recent years. This includes the recent faceoff between Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury which resulted in Usyk being crowned the first undisputed heavyweight champion in more than a generation.
This new league is part of the continuous efforts from the Saudi government to change the country’s image and draw attention away from human rights violations with various sports programs, generally known as sports washing.
