Vince McMahon Sells $100 Million Of WWE Stock To Fund Alpha Entertainment, New XFL Trademarks Filed

In a move that could indicate a big step toward getting involved with professional football, WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon sold 3.34 million Class A common shares of company stock Thursday for what amounts to around $100+ million dollars.

As noted in the SEC filing detailing the sale, “Mr. McMahon executed the sale primarily to fund a separate entity from the Company, Alpha Entertainment LLC, which Mr. McMahon established to explore investment opportunities across the sports and entertainment landscapes, including professional football. Mr. McMahon has informed the Company that he has no current plan to sell additional shares of the Company’s stock and that he intends to continue in his capacity as the Company’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for the foreseeable future.

“The shares sold by Mr. McMahon represent approximately 4.3% of the Company’s total outstanding shares of Class A and Class B common stock. After the sale, Mr. McMahon beneficially owns 32,193,375 shares of the Company’s Class B common stock, which represents approximately 82.8% of the Company’s total voting power and approximately 41.8% of the Company’s total outstanding shares of common stock.”

ESPN Sports Business Reporter, Darren Rovell, also noted that Alpha Entertainment filed for five trademarks to “XFL” on December 16 with it showing up in the trademark office filing on Thursday. This is in addition to McMahon recently filing football trademarks, which includes “URFL”, “United Football League”, “UFL”, and “For the love of football.” WWE filed the XFL trademarks back in June with the foreign filing deadline expiring on December 28.

Vince McMahon's Alpha Entertainment has filed for five trademarks to "XFL."

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) December 21, 2017

the records say they did it on December 16 and it just showed up in the trademark office filings.

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) December 21, 2017

Over the weekend, news broke that McMahon could be looking to bring back the XFL and make the announcement as early as January which led to a further revelation about the creation of Alpha Entertainment.