WWE held their first-quarter 2016 earnings conference call on Tuesday, May 10th, 2016 that featured Michael Weitz (Investor Relations), George Barrios (Chief Financial Officer) and Vince McMahon (CEO & Chairman). Here are the highlights.
– The conference call opens with Weitz welcoming everyone to the call and runs through the earnings. McMahon got on the call and was happy that the network had 1.3 average subscribers. McMahon brought up WrestleMania 32 breaking the attendance record with over 100,000 fans inside AT&T Stadium.
– McMahon touted how many hours was watched on the network and social media.
– McMahon said that WWE has been hit with talent injuries recently (17 people). He noted that Seth Rollins, Bray Wyatt, Randy Orton, and John Cena would be returning soon. He said that 13 stars have been called up to the main roster, and there would be more stars called up soon.
– Barrios took over and said that WWE earned more money than expected in the quarter. Barrios noted that WWE’s earnings were up by 13% compared to the first-quarter of 2015. Barrios went through all of the earnings (live events, TV rights, etc.).
– Barrios noted that Holy Foley, the new season of Swerved and more content would be coming to the network soon.
– Barrios expects that the WWE Network will have an average of 1.5 million network subs in the second quarter.
– Weitz opened up the line for questions.
– When asked about promoting WrestleMania 32 internationally, Weitz said that it wasn’t the first time that they’ve done that and they promote the event as well as the brand in different creative ways.
– McMahon was asked about talent injuries and concussions. McMahon said that they’ve always dealt with injuries, but most of the injuries only leave a talent out of action for three months. McMahon touted how good they handle concussions and the wellness policy. McMahon said that injuries just happen and they deal with them by introducing new talent when top stars go down.
– Weitz noted that WrestleMania week highest level of consumption for any one week period in the network’s history.
– McMahon was asked about Shane McMahon returning to the company. McMahon said, “Shane has come back as a talent. Doing extremely well. Storyline working out extremely well.”
– McMahon was then asked about the returning wrestlers (Rollins, Wyatt, Cena), “The star power going forward seems stronger than normal,” McMahon said.
This wraps up the call.
