The entire defense is “Forbes once printed a private company valuation.”
That isn’t a sale price. It isn’t audited EBITDA. It isn’t a market cleared transaction. And it isn’t proof of profitability.
UFC and WWE are public market cash flow monsters inside TKO. TKO just did $1.597B in Q1 revenue and $549.8M in adjusted EBITDA. UFC alone did $401.2M revenue and $254.5M EBITDA in one quarter. WWE did $475.7M revenue and $256.1M EBITDA.
AEW is a private Tony Khan asset with no public audited P&L, no public EBITDA, no public cash flow statement, and allegedly no guaranteed media rights deal past 2027 unless a reported option gets exercised.
Those aren’t the same species.
“Revenue is up” isn’t valuation analysis. Revenue without margin, durability, pricing power, buyer demand, and distribution security is just a bigger top line. A company can grow revenue and still destroy value.
Saying AEW is “currently worth $2B” because of a 2024 Forbes estimate is hilarious. That number was an estimate, not a bid. It wasn’t a transaction. It wasn’t a buyer. It wasn’t a banker testing the market. It wasn’t an investment committee underwriting the asset.
The only honest sentence is: Forbes once estimated AEW at $2B.
Everything after that is spin.
AEW may have value. AEW may have revenue. AEW may have a billionaire willing to keep funding it. None of that makes a private valuation estimate the same thing as audited cash flow, liquidity, profitability, or a market cleared enterprise value.
UFC and WWE print cash.
AEW prints discourse.
Those are very different businesses.