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TKO MIDDLE EAST EVENTS UPDATE: TKO FIRST QUARTER 2026 EARNINGS CALL COVERAGE

Welcome to PWInsider.com's live, ongoing coverage of TKO's First Quarter 2026 Results Earnings Call.

Seth Zaslow welcomed everyone to the call.  

They presented prepared remarks from Ari Emanuel who said the results show the company is poised to deal with the world as AI transforms how fans consume media.

TKO COO Marc Shapiro and CFO Andrew Schleimer took lead on the call.

Marc Shapiro said they are "firmly" moving forward with all their Middle East events.  Saudi has confirmed they will not be pulling their financial backing from TKO events, including WWE, UFC and Zuffa Boxing with all events in 2026 and beyond to take place as planned.  This will not be a LIV Golf situation.  They also noted they are monitoring the situation and would adhere to all government advisories.  

The WWE ESPN partnership is "gaining traction."  The Elimination Chamber was up from last year.  Wrestlemania 42 had strong ratings on ESPN and ESPN 2.  Wrestlemania Night One was the strongest ESPN 2 audience of 2026.  Netflix became the U.S. home of the WWE archives.  WWE NXT signed a deal for CW to take on the NXT PLE.  

They touted Royal Rumble in Saudi and said the Elimination Chamber in Chicago was the second highest-ever Arena show gate.  There is a "resilliant and durable" demand for their live events.

They said they are not concerned about Wrestlemania tickets being down this year as it outpaced anywhere else they should have staged it (NYC?) and that it was "unrealistic" to expect tickets to surpass last year's event.  They listen to all criticism, noting they were talk about the creative and usage of celebrities.  They touted the success of the shows.

Andrew ran down the numbers

They have added more NXT live events to help accelerate the growth of talents so they can make it to the main roster.

They opened the Q&A portion of the call.  These were the WWE-related questions:

Brandon Ross brought up the fan criticism of ticket prices and sponsorships.  They were asked how the company balances this and whether it's reflective of the overall fan base.  They can't guess what percentage of the fan base the online criticism represents.  They take all feedback from the core fan base as priority.  The criticism is old as time for all entertainment genres, from movie theaters to sports.  Change takes getting used to.  They made lots of examples of such changes.  WWE changes will be more glaring for some as they integrate.  There's no magic formula.  There will be trial and errors.  They've pushed boundaries.  Their product comes first and marketers around the world recognize its strong.  The audience is young and super passionate.  They are working on giving them access while balancing.  These things allow them to be more creative with their product and stars.  The audience is resilient.  They don't take that for granted.

They said they have been firing on all cylinders across the board thanks to their ESPN and Paramount deals.

 

 

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