How much does it matter that this weekend’s WWE Royal Rumble will take place in Saudi Arabia, making it the first Rumble in history to take place outside of North America?
If you’re sitting in Ari Emanuel’s chair then the answer has to be laughable — the Saudi monarchy is reportedly shelling out up to $100 million for Saturday’s show. That’s going to be music to the ears of all those TKO shareholders Emanuel has looked after so well.
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But what about the bigger question: Does it matter that WWE is taking one of its most famous events in its history and selling it to the highest bidder — thus sending the promotion deeper into bed with an autocratic Middle Eastern state whose involvement hasn’t historically been popular with much of the fan base?
By now, we all know the shape of the WWE-Saudi deal, in which the oil-rich Gulf state pays inflated fees to host events, in return for WWE willfully overlooking some of the less positive aspects of the Saudi regime (not least its atrocious human rights record and total lack of political freedoms). To be fair, the partnership is now in its eighth year, and probably looks a little less risky these days considering the broader sporting landscape in 2026. But this weekend’s Royal Rumble still represents a massive escalation — and one which risks reopening some of those old wounds.
To get a sense of how the big picture is changing, just look at that aforementioned figure for how much the Saudis are reportedly paying for this Royal Rumble: $100 million. If accurate, that’s twice as much as they’ve shelled out for previous Saudi events. It’s also probably 10 times the amount paid by Indianapolis when it hosted the Rumble in 2025.
Yet that’s nothing compared to what’s coming down the line, with Saudi Arabia reportedly shelling out up to $250 million to host next year’s WrestleMania. To put that into perspective, WWE’s entire live event revenue for 2024 was $338 million; now they’re potentially set to pocket almost as much as that with just one weekend’s worth of events.
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It’s a massive boost for WWE’s coffers, sure. But it also makes the company far more financially dependent on Saudi Arabia than ever before. Add in the other Saudi PLEs we’ve been told to expect in 2026 and 2027 and the Saudis will have suddenly become the second-biggest buyer of WWE content after Netflix (which spends around $500 million a year under that deal).
Is it wise to be so dependent on one partner? There’s presumably a reason why entities like the UFC and Formula One tend to spread their bets when it comes to foreign partners, typically extracting site fees from numerous countries to run events throughout the year. That means you don’t blow a massive hole in your accounts should one partner decide to walk away.
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Sure, the Saudis seem head-over-heels for WWE right now, but it isn’t implausible that changes. What if Turki Alashaikh has a sudden about-face when it comes to the wrestling leader? Or if the Saudi leadership goes cool on Turki himself? That isn’t the sort of thing you want to speculate about in Riyadh, but it isn’t exactly improbable in an absolute monarchy.
More importantly, though, there’s the greater philosophical question of what it means to be taking WWE’s biggest shows to Saudi Arabia, period. The annual WrestleMania stadium event has been absolutely integral to WWE’s identity for decades now, usually drawing tens of thousands of home fans in the same way as the Super Bowl or the World Series. What does it mean to ship that to Riyadh?
What if Saudi Arabia wants to go even further, paying — let’s just say for the sake of it — $1 billion per year to host the Rumble, WrestleMania and SummerSlam, leaving North American fans to make do with the smaller, single-night PLEs that used to be in Saudi Arabia? It might seem a far-fetched hypothetical now, but we’ve already seen the Saudis massively ramp up their contribution once.
No doubt Emanuel and WWE president Nick Khan have thought about these things, as well as the other risks. How involved will WWE be expected to be involved in promoting other Saudi ventures, for example? After all, when you are that dependent on one customer — as TKO has become with Alashaikh and the Saudi government — you end up becoming an inadvertent partner in their other ventures.
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Right now, there’s no sign that WWE is anything but fully sold on this Saudi partnership. It might not be popular and it certainly isn’t risk-free. But with a reported nine-figure arrangement on the table this weekend, there’s no way they’re slowing down yet. Happy Riyadh Season, everyone.
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