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WWE Reports strong financial results

16K views 215 replies 93 participants last post by  Restomaniac 
#1 · (Edited)
Fourth-Quarter 2015 Highlights

* Revenue increased 18% to $166.2 million driving a $6.0 million increase in Adjusted OIBDA1 to $11.1 million
* WWE Network had 1.22 million ending paid subscribers, representing a 49% increase from the fourth quarter 2014; WWE Network hit an all-time high of 1.24 million average paid subscribers for the quarter
* WWE Network was recognized as the fifth largest direct-to-consumer (“OTT”) subscription service in the U.S. according to Parks Associates, ranking alongside Netflix, Amazon Video, Hulu and MLB.TV
* WWE was added to the S&P SmallCap 600 Index (effective January 20, 2016)

Full Year 2015 Highlights

* Revenue increased 21% to $658.8 million, the highest in the Company’s history, including record levels of revenue from WWE’s Network, Television, Live event, Venue Merchandise, and WWE Shop businesses
* Total international revenue increased by 46% to a record $169.8 million
* Adjusted OIBDA1 reached $68.7 million, representing an $80.3 million increase from 2014
* Network segment generated revenue of $159.4 million and OIBDA1 of $48.4 million that nearly doubled the average annual revenue of the Company’s pay-per-view business before network launch
* WWE Network subscribers watched an estimated total of 256 million hours of content, representing an average of 188 hours per household placing it among the top cable and broadcast networks
* WWE content garnered more than 8 billion views on YouTube; WWE was the most followed sports channel on YouTube and the second most followed sports brand on Facebook
* WWE generated 790 million social media fan engagements in 20152; Sprinklr’s Social Business Index ranked WWE as the 6th most social brand worldwide, alongside Disney, Time Warner and Google

http://www.lordsofpain.net/news/wwe...Quarter_2015_Results.html#DmeP0AcqBHZ2DrgH.99
:vince
 
#10 · (Edited)
Don't be naive, Ratings are still very relevant. Notice that 600m revenue in the report? Over 250k of that is from television rights fees paid by USA.


Too bad all that revenue won't save them once USA cancels them after they fall below a 2 rating in two years (maybe sooner).
USA isn't going to cancel their top rated show by far. WWE isn't doing as good as they once did in ratings, clearly but RAW is outdrawing USA's best shows by quite a wide margin.
 
#5 ·
Fuck! These numbers are massive for WWE. Especially the network...

* WWE Network had 1.22 million ending paid subscribers, representing a 49% increase from the fourth quarter 2014; WWE Network hit an all-time high of 1.24 million average paid subscribers for the quarter

* WWE Network was recognized as the fifth largest direct-to-consumer (“OTT”) subscription service in the U.S. according to Parks Associates, ranking alongside Netflix, Amazon Video, Hulu and MLB.TV

* WWE was added to the S&P SmallCap 600 Index (effective January 20, 2016)
1.22m paid subs, 5th largest is simply incredible.
 
#15 ·
lol His push is failing because he's struggling to stay over. How much revenue WWE continues to bring in isn't a reflection of Reigns' success or failure. WWE continues to bring in record revenue for various other reasons regardless of who is at the top. People are more drawn to the WWE brand name than they are any individual wrestler nowadays.
 
#20 ·
No offense but I never personally understood why people assume low numbers automatically leads to better shows. That has never happened in modern history of wrestling. WCW was drawing horribly low numbers towars the end o f AE era and their shows remained shite despite that. TNA used to draw 1m viewers, now they draw 350k, and their product is as stale, lame and boring as ever. WWE itself was drawing terribly low numbers in 94,95 even prior to nWo, and that led to nothing. The only proven thing in wrestling is that competition would lead to better product. Low numbers never did, never do.
 
#19 · (Edited)
Once again proves that the correlation between ratings and the general state of the WWE is becoming weaker and weaker, the response to Bryan's retirement speech was a clear indicator, this report puts the final nail on the coffin. The network is the future, TV on the wane. WWE management has hit the home run with regards to most of it's financial decisions.
 
#23 ·
Ratings are slowly getting irrelevant with each passing year.
 
#27 ·
People should read the report more thoroughly before jumping to conclusions.

The record revenues are driven by their TV deals (So, Yea ratings still matter).

If you read it you will see that the network is showing virtually no growth on that current 1.2m subscriber number despite having expanded into India, Japan, Austria, Switzerland and Germany the past four months.

The current subscriber number given shows that this has made no difference to business (unless they lost a significant number of subscribers elsewhere)

They are far from doing badly, but the future of their business is the network and it's not doing particularly great numbers.

They also don't mention anywhere the fact that their attendances are gradually falling to the point they they aren't selling out Raw's on this RTWM and their product is continuously regressing back to were it was in the early/mid 90's in terms of the quality of the content.

Setting record low numbers in the TV ratings on their road to WM indicates huge dissatisfaction with the product from their US fanbase (which still accounts for nearly 1m subscribers of their total number) as does the fact that they are failing to sell out arenas for their marquee show at this time of year.

So, I think there is genuine cause for concern for WWE. Those markets in India etc seem to be fairly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things given their weak numbers on launch, so unless they somehow explode in popularity in these countries (not possible without a cultural shift or genuine superstar talent or talents) then they have to be concerned about their US fanbase for the long term.

Those record international revenues are down to TV deals and income from the network (Which still includes their second biggest market in the UK as part of their annual results)
 
#28 ·
@Higuzishi

Don't know where your quote disappeared but WWE is the last party to be concerned of the TV deal here. What this latest data has proved, once again is that the standard of viewership on T.V and the level of it's implications is undergoing a significant change. You can no longer use ratings as a relevant parameter to judge the state of the company because the ratings have been falling for 10 years and still WWE has never suffered significant losses in TV deals, rather, they have shown contrarian behaviour. This is a landmark report, not only in WWE but also in TV and Internet history.
 
#29 ·
The thing is what none of us really understand, is that the Network was just a ploy to get us older fans to keep watching the product, I have seen many people on here say that they have stopped watching the Raws and Smackdowns. But when all said and done if we have a Network subscription to watch the older stuff that we loved as kids, I'm sure WWE wouldn't mind losing the 0.001 rating mark for a +1 sub.
 
#34 ·
WWE is doing really well. Ratings, an antiquated way of gauging interest and measuring actual viewers, simply does not tell the whole story, or even much of it in modern times. When people ask "why doesn't WWE change things when the ratings are the worst they've been in 18 years?" they fail to realize that, again, ratings are a poor representation of interest in the product or its success.

Many here also seem to think that USA is disappointed and might cancel WWE, yet they fail to realize that USA was happy enough that they brought over Smackdown and had Tough Enough last year. Were USA unhappy with WWE, why would they order more WWE? WWE does comparatively well in their time slot, on their night and in their demographic. What does that mean? It means USA is happy to have WWE on their network.

Like the current product or not, WWE is doing really well. That isn't going to change, even if your favorite isn't pushed to the moon.
 
#39 · (Edited)
People need to realize the context of the report here and not jump at fancy looking keywords like profits and losses here. I'll explain this way:

Scenario 1: X normally spends 50 $ and earns 55 $ in revenue, hence a 5 $ profit.

Now, X expands his business to drastically improve profits by making an initial hefty investment.

Now:

Scenario 2: X spends now 70 $ one year for the expansions and earns 65 $ in revenue. Now, even though it shows a 5 $ loss but X has sustained themselves for the future because the capital investment is a 1 time investment but the profits will remain >= $65 every year henceforth because the framework is already set.

This is huge for the WWE, they have officially weathered the storm and have succeeded in their biggest financial endeavour. Brilliant business acumen by Vince & co. once again.
 
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