WWE suing Texas Attorney General to prevent release of bidding contract for Royal Rumble 2023

brandon@wrestlenomics.com 

WWE filed a complaint on Feb. 16 against the Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, to prevent the release of an agreement between WWE and the City of San Antonio. 

Releasing the contract would allow Wrestlenomics to report on it and reveal information including what the city government gave WWE in exchange for bringing the Royal Rumble event to the Alamodome in 2023. WWE says the agreement is a trade secret and contains proprietary information that fits an exemption in Texas’s public information law.

Various records were requested by Wrestlenomics from the City of San Antonio following the Royal Rumble last year. That resulted in our reporting on the event’s ticket sales, the announced attendance figure, as well as ticket sales of the 2017 Rumble, which was also held in the city.

In April 2023, city officials were granted an exemption from the state Attorney General’s office, which allowed them to withhold the bidding contract.

However, the Attorney General revised the decision on Jan. 17, 2024. The letter, written by an Assistant Attorney General, Michelle Garza, stated, “WWE has failed to provide specific factual evidence demonstrating the information at issue is confidential under” Texas’s public information law.

Obtaining site fees or other subsidies from government bodies for major events is a publicly stated strategy for WWE. President Nick Khan said at a conference last year that the company’s goal is to eventually get a site fee for each premium live event. 

Last year, Wrestlenomics confirmed with the local government in Puerto Rico that WWE received more than $1.5 million in subsidies to run Backlash and Smackdown in San Juan last May. 

TKO COO Mark Shapiro said in December that the WWE and UFC parent is getting $16 million for “a combination of events” in Australia. Presumably, that includes last Saturday’s Elimination Chamber show in Perth.

Since 2018, WWE has received more than $50 million per event from Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority.

The revision of the Attorney General’s earlier ruling was seemingly brought on by further review following a second records request, submitted sometime before Oct. 12, 2023, when WWE says it received notice from San Antonio about another request.

The second requesting organization was Intelligence Options, LLC. WWE’s suit says that request is now moot because it was made in connection with a lawsuit that has since been settled. Intelligence Options sought records related to “[a]ll bids, requests for proposals, contracts and agreements” between WWE and San Antonio from 2015 to the present and all complaints related to WWE throughout the same period.

We reached out to Intelligence Options by email but haven’t heard back yet.

WWE settled a racial discrimination lawsuit with former writer Britney Abrahams, which was dismissed on Oct. 13, 2023. We contacted Abrahams’ attorney for the case, Derek Sells, who said he isn’t at liberty to discuss his client’s matter.

MLW CEO Court Bauer, whose organization settled an anti-trust lawsuit with WWE in December last year, told us in an email he doesn’t know who or what Intelligence Options is.

WWE and trading card licensee Panini also settled a lawsuit last fall. We emailed lawyers who represented Panini and a media relations contact for Panini but have yet to hear back.

We also reached out to WWE to ask which lawsuit the Intelligence Options request was associated with and will update this article if we get a response.

The website for Intelligence Options says the company provides litigation consulting, as well as investigative and deal diligence services.

A sworn declaration from WWE Senior Vice President of Communications Chris Legentil is provided as an exhibit to the new complaint filed by WWE. Legentil says the bidding contract shouldn’t be released to Wrestlenomics.

“If this information was made publicly available and Brandon Thurston was permitted to publicize our financial information and negotiated terms on Wrestlenomics,” Legentil’s declaration states, “WWE would lose our bargaining power in negotiating all of our live events and much of the value of a bidding process for venues.”

Records related to Royal Rumble 2023 were eligible for public records request because the Alamodome is owned and operated by the city government. A contract between the City of San Antonio and WWE is also a public record because one of the parties is a government entity.

However, WWE argues the bidding contract should be exempt from being disclosed under Texas’s public information laws, which, with certain conditions, defines a trade secret as “all forms and types of information, including business, scientific, technical, economic, or engineering information, and any formula, design, prototype, pattern, plan, compilation, program device, program, code, device, method, technique, process, procedure, financial data, or list of actual or potential customers or suppliers, whether tangible or intangible and whether or however stored, compiled, or memorialized physically, electronically, graphically, photographically”.

WWE’s lawsuit is filed with the 345th Civil District Court in Travis County. Austin, the Texas state capital, is in Travis County.

WWE is seeking from the county court a judgment and injunction to prevent the release of the bidding contract related to the above-mentioned information requests and any future similar requests.

WWE is being represented by attorneys from Texas-based law firm Holland & Knight LLP.

To be clear, neither Wrestlenomics (which is a limited liability company) nor myself personally, are being sued in this case. The lawsuit will merely determine whether Wrestlenomics and possibly Intelligence Options will be given information related to the bidding agreement between the city and WWE.

There was a somewhat similar case in 2011 in New Jersey, which resulted in the release of records related to various events including some WWE shows held from 2007 to 2011.