NEW YORK: World Wrestling Entertainment or the WWE, one of the world’s most lucrative sporting properties, declared its third quarter results (ending September 2018) on Thursday.
Amongst the highlights, WWE was pleased to announce that it posted an all-time record net revenue worth $657.7 million for the first nine months of the year. It is a 12% rise from January-September 2017, during which the entity had earned $589.4 million.
Net revenues are divided into three parts – Live events, consumer products and media. While the first two have seen a marginal dip this year, it is the media rights and original content for fan engagement across digital platforms that has made WWE cover up more than enough which gained in value from $389.2 million in 2017 and $478.1 million this year.
Media revenues increased 9% to $142.1 million in the third quarter, primarily due to the contractual escalation of core content rights fees, namely license fees associated with the WWE’s flagship programs Raw and SmackDown, as well as the production and monetization of programming reflected in “Other,” including the launch of Miz & Mrs, an original series which debuted on USA Network, and the season eight premiere of Total Divas. Additionally, the growth in media revenue reflected increased sales of advertising and sponsorships across platforms, and the continued growth of WWE Network that yielded a 9% increase in average paid subscribers to more than 1.66 million.
The WWE has gained exactly $2 million more from last year at $188.4 million in net revenues from July-September. This year so far, digital engagement also increased with video views up 61% to 22.9 billion and hours consumed up 81% to 842 million across digital and social media platforms.
“During the quarter, we remained keenly focused on deepening engagement with our global fan base by delivering compelling original content across media platforms,” WWE chairman and CEO Vince McMahon said.
“We believe that deepening engagement will enable us to take advantage of favorable global industry trends and drive long-term growth.”
WWE co-president George Barrios added: “We continue to effectively execute our strategy and achieved Adjusted OIBDA that surpassed our public guidance. Our performance maintains our path to achieve record revenue, record Adjusted OIBDA and record subscribers for the full year 2018.”
The adjusted Operating Income Before Depreciation And Amortization (OIBDA) was $35.8 million as compared to $45.6 million in the prior year quarter with the OIBDA margin decreasing to 19% from 24%. This excludes stock compensation.
The WWE estimates fourth quarter 2018 (October-December) Adjusted OIBDA of approximately $45 million to $55 million. It also projects average paid subscribers to WWE Network of approximately 1.56 million for the same period, which contributes to growth of approximately 8% for the full year.
The range of projected fourth quarter results would result in full year 2018 Adjusted OIBDA of $160 million to $170 million, which would be another all-time record for the WWE as well. The WWE’s 2019 financial results are likely to depend on it finalising its content distribution deals in UK by December 2018 and in India by the first half of 2019.
