10 People Most Likely To Succeed Vince McMahon As WWE Owner Ranked

3. Jeff Shell

Jeff Shell is the current CEO of NBCUniversal, which is the company that owns USA Network and Peacock and would surely have a huge interest in purchasing WWE should Vince McMahon opt to sell.

If you break down how much NBCUniversal is forking out for WWE content, it would make perfect sense for the company to try and outright purchase WWE once the sports entertainment juggernaut's deal with FOX comes to an end. As it stands, FOX has a billion-dollar deal in place to house SmackDown until 2024.

To go with cold, hard numbers, NBCUniversal already pays out $265 million per year for WWE Raw, paid over $1 billion to host WWE Network on Peacock in the US, and then pays around $30 million per annum for NXT to air on USA Network.

Considering WWE's value is approximately in the $5.7 billion region, it gets to a point where it makes far more sense for NBCUniversal to try and purchase WWE rather than simply paying out huge fees to air WWE content. One major sticking point right now, is the aforementioned SmackDown issue. Would NBCUniversal really want to purchase a product while one arm of its programming is contracted to air on a rival network?

If the stars align, though, the Jeff Shell-driven NBCUniversal could make a hard push to buy WWE once that SmackDown/FOX arrangement is up in 2024.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.