AEW has an interest in merging with WWE

All Elite Wrestling, a professional wrestling league owned by the Khan family, wants to merge with World wrestling entertainmentaccording to people familiar with the matter.

The Khans, who also own the National Football League’s Jacksonville Jaguars and the Premier League’s Fulham FC, could partner with a strategic media company to share intellectual property while merging the wrestling leagues, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. AEW has a TV broadcast rights deal with Discovery of Warner Bros.It’s TNT and TBS.

The idea that Vince McMahon, the majority shareholder of WWE, would merge his company with the much smaller AEW is a long shot. AEW has not had any discussions with McMahon or Nick Khan, the company’s chief executive, the people said. McMahon may consider the sale to the Khans a non-starter.

The Khans are open to discussing a potential role for McMahon, 77, after a sale, but have yet to have those discussions, one of the people said. It’s unclear what type of job McMahon would want with WWE after a sale, but WWE is a much larger and more established organization than AEW. McMahon, who was worth more than $3 billion in July, is also known as the main creative force behind WWE storylines.

Sports mogul Shahid Khan, 72, is ranked 292 on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a net worth of $7.56 billion. It also owns auto parts maker Flex-N-Gate.