By Miguel Mike Medina
Photo Credit: NYSE, Creator: Courtney Crow
TKO leaders Ari Emanuel and Mark Shapiro appeared on CNBC to promote Emanuel’s new memoir, Roll the Calls: A Memoir. Shapiro also discussed WWE being part of TKO.
Most business people wait till they retire to write a memoir. Emanuel, 65, a Hollywood mogul, has faced adversities and doesn’t hold anything back, being brutally honest about his life and business career. Why did he feel he needed to write this memoir?
“There are two reasons,” Emanuel said. “One, being a parent of dyslexic kids, understanding the anxiety that brings, and having seen my mother go through it with me because I’m dyslexic, and coming out on the other side of that, I think it’s important for parents to read it, understand what it takes to help your kids, the anxiety you have, but coming out of it, I think if you do the right things, your kids can be incredible and free thinkers and have emotional endurance.”
The book is 424 pages. One of the things Ari focuses on in the book is the growth of the TV industry. Ari is far from being done working in business. He’s accomplished a lot in his career and is a master of dealmaking. Emanuel feels that there’s a lot more to do.
“We’re still kicking until Shapiro kicks me out,” Emanuel laughs.
Emanuel and his agency have represented big names such as Larry David, Quentin Tarantino, Denzel Washington, Billie Eilish, Martin Scorsese, and Oprah Winfrey.
Shapiro shares his thoughts on the pushback he received from his company. WWE is one of the institutions that’s part of TKO.
“WWE was new to TKO, and we took the playbook from UFC,” Shapiro said. “We applied it to WWE, and we took down the low-hanging fruit. This year what you’re seeing is 2 and 8 percent respectively, due to year-end international events that limit our ability to do much more, but it’s back-loaded. The second half is a ton of. It’s back-loaded deals that take effect. Many are multi-year, all high-margin, all recurring, and we will finish with over a 20 percent year-over-year increase in WWE partnership revenue for the year.”
Shapiro worked at ESPN early in his career.
Miguel Mike Medina is the publisher of The MMM Journal. He can be reached at medinamiguelmike@gmail.com and themmmjournal@gmail.com
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