Vince McMahon and George Barrios were hosts of today's WWE Business Outlook conference call, as many investors and interested parties joined in for the public call. The following highlights from the call were put together by Doug McDonald of WrestlingRumors.net.
* Vince McMahon called in from London, England, as he is on site for “Monday Night Raw” at the O2 Arena. McMahon claims that the company is disappointed in the NBCUniversal deal, however if you look at all of the distribution deals they signed over the last couple of weeks, they did almost double they’re distribution numbers, which they had advertised. It’s not what they wanted, he says, but they didn’t lie. Previously they had said “we can double, hopefully triple our distribution numbers this year.” Looks like they just almost doubled. The future is what they’re building towards, and sometimes that takes risk.
* George Barrios discusses what WWE invested in the WWE Network, and talks about bridging the gap between 2013 and 2015. They’ll be losing $40 million in 2014 due to the low WWE Network subscriber numbers vs. PPV losses. He discloses that spent $75 million upstart and creation of the WWE Network and $40 million. Barrios explains that when the WWE Network hits 2.5 million subscribers, the company will be making $65 million more than they made through PPV revenue in 2012.
* During the Q&A portion of the conference call, McMahon noted that he understood that launching the WWE Network would negatively effect TV negotiations in 2014.
* All WWE Television distribution, including the new deal with NBCUniversal do not go past five years.
* The conference call loses connection with host, and McMahon calls out for Barrios a couple of times. When he realizes that everyone is gone but himself, he let’s out a tired, “Sh*t,” and goes silent until the connection with host is reconnected.
* When connection was restored, Barrios answered a few more questions, but many of the numbers he responded with had already been discussed previously in the call or in other WWE financial reports.
