If it sounds like a plotline from HBO’s “Entourage,” there’s a reason: Ari Emanuel inspired the show’s famously ruthless superagent Ari Gold.
Emanuel has now revealed how he engineered Endeavor’s takeover of the William Morris Agency by secretly plotting to remove its CEO, making a promise to another executive he never intended to keep and spending roughly $44 million to buy out both men.
In an excerpt from his forthcoming memoir published Tuesday by The Wall Street Journal, Emanuel offers a strikingly candid account of the power play that created William Morris Endeavor in 2009 and reshaped Hollywood’s talent-agency business.
Emanuel writes that he persuaded William Morris chief operating officer Irv Weintraub to surrender his seat on the combined company’s board by assuring him the move was temporary. Weintraub would be reinstated after William Morris CEO Jim Wiatt was removed, Emanuel promised.
But after Wiatt agreed to leave, Emanuel and fellow Endeavor executive Patrick Whitesell called Weintraub and forced him out too. The double-cross, according to Emanuel, was always part of the plan.
The pursuit began in 2003, when Emanuel concluded that Endeavor needed a merger to gain enough scale to compete against CAA. Harvard Business School professor Nitin Nohria provided the principle that would guide his strategy: “No such thing as a merger.”
Every combination ultimately has a dominant party and a subordinate one, Nohria told the Endeavor executives, according to Emanuel. The winner needed to establish control before resistance from the other side destabilized the company.
Emanuel settled on William Morris, which possessed valuable music and publishing divisions, legacy packaging revenue and a prestigious name but was beset by internal conflict.
During an initial meeting that year, Emanuel suggested that Endeavor might buy William Morris. Weintraub laughed at him, prompting an enraged Emanuel to insist that Endeavor was more valuable before storming out.
Negotiations resumed in 2007. By 2009, the companies had agreed that Wiatt would serve as chairman, while Emanuel, Whitesell and William Morris executive Dave Wirtschafter would become co-CEOs. The board’s voting structure effectively gave the two sides equal power.
Emanuel then began quietly dismantling the William Morris leadership.
He told Weintraub that music chief Peter Grosslight needed his board seat and personally guaranteed that Weintraub would get it back after Wiatt’s eventual removal. Emanuel separately disclosed the plan to Grosslight.
The boards approved the merger on April 27, 2009. But before the combination became official, Wiatt issued a companywide memo demanding inclusion on calls with major studios.
Emanuel decided Wiatt needed to leave immediately.
Jennifer Rudolph Walsh, then-head of William Morris’ book department and a board member, enlisted two of Wiatt’s friends to help persuade him to accept a settlement and depart quietly. Wiatt ultimately agreed.
Emanuel and Whitesell then called Weintraub. When the executive invoked Emanuel’s promise, Emanuel told him that he lacked the board votes to remain. A settlement followed.
Emanuel estimates that removing Wiatt and Weintraub cost approximately $44 million, which he frames as the effective price of acquiring one of Hollywood’s most storied institutions.
He also acknowledges another benefit: settling the score with the executive who had laughed at him six years earlier.
The merger created WME, which later acquired IMG and UFC as Emanuel built Endeavor into an entertainment and sports empire. Emanuel now serves as executive chairman and CEO of TKO Group Holdings, the parent company of UFC and WWE.
Representatives for WME did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Roll the Calls,” written with Pulitzer Prize winner J.R. Moehringer, will be published Sept. 22 by Alfred A. Knopf.
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