Report: Vince sells WWE to Saudi Investment Fund

While not confirmed yet, there is a decent buzz kicking around that the old man has sold to the SIF. Again, not confirmed, but it seems to be coming from enough viable/legit sources.

So, questions:

1. Thoughts?
2. Who leaves if this is accurate?
3. Where do those that do leave go? AEW can't take everyone...

Do enough people care about this to actually sink the company? A LOT to think about here...

I question how fast this is all moving to be true. I mean, maybe Vince had this planned for a while, and the whole "getting kicked out for being a rapist" thing just threw a wrench in his plan. But he has only been back for, what, like a week?

Will people leave over it? Maybe. It didn't seem like there were that many people that refused to go to those Crown Jewel shows, at least not enough to sink the company. I mean maybe they'd fell differently about being fully owned than just doing a show once a year.

I don't think enough fans leave to tank the company either. I think the bigger issue would be sponsors pulling out that don't want anything to do with Saudi Arabia. But does Saudi Arabia even care about that? Do they care about profits, or are these purchases just weird PR campaigns and making new inroads, even if they lose money?

I'd imagine the amount of WWE fans who care about the moral aspects of the company ownership/activities /etc is such a miniscule portion that this won't effect viewership or attendence at all.

@brian_: Vince has always been the majority shareholder so he might have been working out the details on this with the Saudis for months, if it's true. There was nothing stopping him from planning the sale while he was out of the company, and when he came back he said it was to sell, so it's possible that he worked out the details of the sale and then seized control of the company again in order to sign the papers, rather than picking up a cold deal from 6 months ago.

Assuming this is true (and it seems likely) then it seems certain that Sami Zayn is out or at least out of his spot, as are other wrestlers who have criticized the Saudis. Long term who knows what it means for the women's division etc...

One thing's for sure, there won't be a Muhammed Hassan storyline repeat!

As long as the Saudis don't try to make their presence too known on camera directly I doubt it will have much impact on viewership, though some sponsors may balk. I already don't really directly consume WWE product but I sure as heck wouldn't be super interested in giving any money to the murderers of Jamal Khashoggi.

i'm not a very dedicated wrestling fan so it wont be difficult for me to not occasionally watch smackdown but for what its worth i wont give the saudi's any more money.

RIP Sami.

For what it's worth, some are saying the rumours aren't true (but the company may have been sold).

Stephanie is out too. Can't imagine the Triple H regime lasting long... which makes the jumps back to WWE hilarious. This is yet another case of the most obvious thing happening and people still being surprised, both wrestlers and fans included.

Hilarious how Triple H had all these plans to disrupt AEW in the international market, court some of their talent away, etc. and that just goes down the drain the moment some old man throws yet another control-freak tantrum. McMahon always told us he'd rather the company die than pass to someone else, and like when he told us "I TELL YOU WHAT YOU LIKE!", that was a shoot, brother.

There's never been a better time for this to happen, there have never been more excellent, accessible alternatives and I'll happily let my Peacock subscription lapse.

I'm glad I decided to say 'fuck the Rumble' and just watch bad movies for my birthday even before all this happened. We're doing a double-feature of "Captain America (1990)" and the unreleased Roger Corman "Fantastic 4."

If you don't want to give money to the Saudis, you're going to need to boycott a lot more than the WWE.

If it's anything like when the Saudi Investment fund bought Newcastle United football (soccer) club, more money will get pumped in and WWE will increase their audience, if anything. Like @judaspete rightfully mentions, the saudi investment fund is very powerful, but most of their investments are in non-entertainment ventures so you don't hear about them.

Twitter, for instance.

The way the reporting on this evolved in just a matter of days says so much on the state of modern wrestling reporting.

It really does lol - the different things I've heard about that sale from different sources at this point, who fuckin' knows what's going on. Also, like, there's no way an AEW/WWE merger would pass the FTC right? Even if Disney is the biggest machine in the world...

Can you treat wrestling on the same terms as other industries, though? And the WCW buyout remains a very obvious precedent.

That's a fair point too - wrestling is some real carny shit sometimes, making 'serious' reporting on it kind of a misnomer lol