Since joining WWE back in 2020, Nick Khan’s name has never been far from the headlines.
Khan made an instant impact after joining in the role of President and Chief Revenue Officer, playing an instrumental role in the five-year deal with NBCUniversal that is valued at over $1 billion for WWE.
Having helped mastermind revenue saving initiatives that bought a huge flurry of talent cuts in 2021, Khan formed part of the WWE Executive team that green-lighted the merger with Endeavor Group. The $21b merger sees WWE come under the same umbrella as UFC and with talents from the octagon earning huge sums for their fights, some have questioned if WWE would need to adjust their pay structure.
Nick Khan believes WWE talents are adequately paid
One such person to raise the question of pay was YouTuber turned boxer Jake Paul. The brother of occasional WWE Superstar Logan Paul tweeted to suggest that the merger could see an uplift in pay for the WWE roster:
“UFC + WWE makes too much sense. Great path to increasing fighter pay.”
Nick Khan, who reportedly pocketed almost $25m in the past year for his WWE work thanks to salary incentives, has defended the WWE wage structure in a recent interview with LightShed Live, noting that he feels Superstars are paid fairly:
“In terms of our performers, we think a lot of them are well compensated. Certainly, all talent wants to be paid more. Management wants to try and manage those costs. Each individual deal is unique in and of itself. We’re confident with our position in the marketplace in terms of our WWE superstars.
Depending on what the rights fees increases on the media right, we expect a lot of that to drop to the bottom line.”
With rumours of WWE hiring freeze for the remainder of 2023 abound, it will be interesting to see if the talent that continue their stay with the company are content with their compensation or if more is still to be made of the gap in pay between WWE and UFC stars now that both brands fall under the Endeavor umbrella.
H/T: Fightful for the above transcription