The Saudis’ emphatic disruption of boxing continues, but their latest move spells good news for Dana White and the UFC. As the industry leader in MMA and bundled with the pro wrestling juggernaut WWE—thanks to the duo’s ownership under the TKO Holdings Group—the UFC now finds itself on the brink of expanding into yet another combat sport. Ari Emanuel’s $27 billion powerhouse conglomerate is making its first foray into boxing, with TKO COO and President Mark Shapiro revealing that a groundbreaking deal with the Saudis’ General Entertainment Authority is imminent.
This agreement will see TKO launch a brand-new boxing league—without investing a single dollar of its own. Instead, the company will actually garner profit from the venture, raking in $10 million for handling the league’s daily operations and production. It’s a win-win scenario for TKO. Not only does the company secure financial upside without risk, but it also gains an opportunity to reshape the sport with its signature promotional prowess. By applying its successful business model to the sweet science, TKO aims to rejuvenate boxing in America—offering a fresh, dynamic product that outshines what’s currently on the table.
“Everybody knows we’re in talks with the Saudis but to give you a little more color, I will tell you that we are close on an agreement with the Saudis on a creation of a boxing league where we TKO would be the producer, the promoter and responsible for all day-to-day operations of the venture, whereby we would receive a fee of $10 million plus.” Shapiro declared during a financial call with investors.
And it is safe to say that TKO expects this deal to be sealed any day now, owing to the talks happening over the past few days. “We’ve just sent a delegation to London to meet with the Saudi delegation led by Andrew Schleimer, our [chief financial officer] and Nick Khan, of course, who runs WWE, and Lawrence Epstein who runs UFC,” Shapiro said. “They had a full-day meeting earlier this week and we’re getting awfully close and when we have something official, we’ll come out [with the news].”
Fans will remember Dana White talking about stepping into the boxing game over the past few years. But it seems his bosses beat him to the jump. While the UFC and White will be sharing their expertise in running the forthcoming boxing league, the Las Vegas-based MMA promotion will not have a central role in it, Shapiro clarified in the press talk.
“When you look at boxing, it checks the boxes of all of that. It’s thoughtful, it’s the right strategic place for us to be. We have experts in Nick Khan and Dana White among others that can drive that business. We can be selective in terms of how we participate and whatever we do, we will not take risk and it will definitely be value accretive,” the COO revealed.
The TKO COO further added, “There’s an audience for boxing and there’s a dearth of boxing on the national platform. There’s a desire to have it back in the forefront of the American sports ecosystem. It’s just been broken for too long, it’s been fragmented, it’s been poorly managed and we think we can do a lot with it.”
The timeline for when the boxing league will be up and running is still unclear. However, Shapiro did give a definitive timeline for at least one major development as well as the running of the league.
TKO Holdings will hold multiple major marquee boxing events in Saudi starting this year
In recent times, the Saudis, through the Turki Alalshikh-led General Entertainment Authority, have emerged as the dominant superpower in boxing. They have financed and organized some of the biggest boxing matches in the Kingdom such as the first heavyweight unification bout in nearly twenty years. The Saudis also signed ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, the biggest superstar in the sport, to a four-fight deal a few weeks ago.
The new boxing league is seemingly trying to export the UFC business model to boxing, with Shapiro revealing that it will run throughout the year. In addition, the TKO COO revealed that they would be organizing two boxing mega-cards each this year and the next in Saudi as part of the deal, which would help them gain valuable experience in the core business of boxing.
“I think I’ve given you at least a framework of what the deal would be. It’s own league and we’d have consistent fights throughout the year. I think on top of that you should know as part of the partnership, we would be the promoter, producer, and event operator for four large-scale kind of super-fights, as I call them, that would air probably two this year and two in [2026]. Those may or may not fall into the boxing league itself, they may just be one-offs,” Shapiro said. What do you think about the TKO-Saudi plan for a boxing league?
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