Ari Emanuel’s gambit to take Endeavor private, a notion reported by Bloomberg and then elaborated upon brilliantly by my partner Matt Belloni, reeks to me of opportunism. Of course, longtime loyal readers know that the whims and vicissitudes of Ari and Endeavor have long been of interest to me. Ari first attempted to take Endeavor public, in 2019, after amassing a series of live-events businesses adjacent to his core talent agencies. But, alas, the market didn’t understand the synergy of assets, or Ari’s idea for them, and the listing got pulled at the last minute due to weak investor demand. Eventually, though, Ari being Ari, in April 2021, Endeavor raised $511 million in an I.P.O. priced at $24 a share that valued Endeavor at $10.3 billion. (Puck is a client of WME, Endeavor’s talent agency.)

Endeavor has always been either hard to understand or misunderstood. On the first day of trading, Endeavor’s stock opened at $27 a share, up 12.5 percent. The stock reached an all-time high of $35 a share in December 2021. It has floated down ever since. Then, back in April, Ari announced that Endeavor’s UFC, a leader in mixed-martial arts, would merge with World Wrestling Entertainment, in a $21 billion deal, to create the publicly traded TKO Group Holdings. (Under the terms of the deal, Endeavor would own 51 percent of TKO and WWE’s shareholders would own the balance of 49 percent.) Ari was named the C.E.O. of TKO in addition to being the C.E.O. of Endeavor. That deal closed on September 12. Since then, however, the TKO stock price is down nearly 20 percent and the company’s market value has slipped to $14 billion.