Highlights from WWE’s 2013 second quarter conference call

Today, WWE held a conference call to discuss their second quarter earning results. 

Vince McMahon proclaimed that WWE was down more this quarter than they thought they would be. Wrestlemania 29 was down a bit from what they expected, but was still a strong number.

McMahon mentioned the success of the debut of Total Divas, the upcoming WWE and Flintstones movie and an upcoming John Cena kids clothing line being released in K-Mart this fall. They have renewed their deal with Fruity Pebbles and with the PG product, they are opening up a lot of new deals.

Live event attendance was about even and social media awareness was up 74% from last year. McMahon mentioned that the WWE app has around 7 million downloads and that by airing content live during RAW, they are teaching people how to watch TV again.

McMahon stated that their TV deals have always been undervalued and that will no longer be the case going forward.

McMahon put over the new Performance Center and how it will help with new talent going forward. McMahon said these were the positives in what was otherwise a “lousy” quarter. 

WWE CFO George Barrios got on the call and mentioned that Wrestlemania 29 was the largest grossing event in WWE history and the second most profitable. Their TV audience reached 12 million people in 8.6 million homes, which is a 10 & 12 percent increase respectively. Once again, Barrios used the word “potential” when referencing the WWE Network. Barrios mentioned that in the next four months, he expects WWE to get a greater value from their TV partners as their contracts come up for renewal, mentioning the increased rights fees in sports. Barrios stated that by renegotiating their top four TV deals in the U.S. and overseas and with digital growth, it will see a big growth for the company. Finally, Barrios mentioned the big potential for the WWE Network to be a subscription-based channel in the US and overseas. 

That concluded the call.

Source: PWInsider.com

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