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Ari Emanuel on TKO never being sold

Ari Emanuel sat down with Matt Belloni on The Town and got hit with the kind of question that usually gets a polite non-answer. Belloni wanted him to pick the ideal buyer for TKO. Emanuel's reply was basically one word, and then he made it even clearer. Not happening. Not ever. Belloni wasn't letting it go, though, and kept pushing that the company would be sold at some point, even tossing out names like Paramount and Amazon. Emanuel didn't budge. No buyer, no sale, never. Then he got into why. Back in 2016, he, Egon Durban, Mark, and Patrick looked at where sports was headed and where the streamers were headed, and they made moves based on that. At the time, plenty of people thought the prices for IMG and the other sports assets were way too high, that they'd lost their minds. Emanuel brought up something his son Leo tells him about Thursday being baby Friday, and how with AI, Wednesday might end up being the baby Thursday. His point was that free time is only going to grow. If GDP keeps growing at 3% and AI keeps advancing, people are going to have more money than they've ever had. More money and more time means more people going out, hitting sporting events, consuming entertainment, being social. Sports, in his view, is the greatest reality show ever made. People are trying to buy teams now, and TKO already owns four leagues. That asset is only getting more valuable, going up and to the right. Which is why, as Egon Durban and Emanuel see it, there's zero chance of a sale. Zero.

1h

Sandeepx 💯@sandeepx

Follow

Ari Emanuel on TKO never being sold

Ari Emanuel sat down with Matt Belloni on The Town and got hit with the kind of question that usually gets a polite non-answer. Belloni wanted him to pick the ideal buyer for TKO. Emanuel's reply was basically one word, and then he made it even clearer. Not happening. Not ever. Belloni wasn't letting it go, though, and kept pushing that the company would be sold at some point, even tossing out names like Paramount and Amazon. Emanuel didn't budge. No buyer, no sale, never. Then he got into why. Back in 2016, he, Egon Durban, Mark, and Patrick looked at where sports was headed and where the streamers were headed, and they made moves based on that. At the time, plenty of people thought the prices for IMG and the other sports assets were way too high, that they'd lost their minds. Emanuel brought up something his son Leo tells him about Thursday being baby Friday, and how with AI, Wednesday might end up being the baby Thursday. His point was that free time is only going to grow. If GDP keeps growing at 3% and AI keeps advancing, people are going to have more money than they've ever had. More money and more time means more people going out, hitting sporting events, consuming entertainment, being social. Sports, in his view, is the greatest reality show ever made. People are trying to buy teams now, and TKO already owns four leagues. That asset is only getting more valuable, going up and to the right. Which is why, as Egon Durban and Emanuel see it, there's zero chance of a sale. Zero.

1h