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The latest edition of The Hollywood Reporter featured a piece on how TKO Group Holdings handled the fallout of the Vince McMahon lawsuit, specifically once Slim Jim announced they were "pausing" their sponsorship deal with WWE on the eve of the 2024 Royal Rumble.
The article notes:
Those concerns culminated the evening of Jan. 26, when Emanuel and TKO president and COO Mark Shapiro called McMahon and told him it would be in the best interest of the company for him to resign. He agreed, and submitted his resignation. “He will no longer have a role with TKO Group Holdings or WWE,” WWE president Nick Khan wrote in a memo to staff at 8:30 p.m. that evening, announcing McMahon’s resignation to employees.
The article notes that while WWE's media rights deals were locked in, within Endeavor, there were concerns about how McMahon remaining with the company could be "problematic" for not just WWE rights fees when the current Peacock deal for the company's library and PPVs but also UFC's rights when they come up next year. There was also a concern that McMahon remaining could hurt Endeavor's hopes for bringing WWE more major league advertising partners.
The article also stated that the Janel Grant lawsuit details caught TKO leadership by surprise, while another source claimed it was McMahon's past catching up with him.
McMahon, WWE and John Laurinaitis are all defendants in the Grant lawsuit but have yet to officially respond. McMahon has publicly promised to defend himself while Laurinaitis, through his attorney, has presented that he was as much of a victim of McMahon as Grant alleges to be.
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