WWE Earnings Call Recap: Injuries, Shane McMahon, WWE Returns, WWE Network Growth, New Content, More

WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon, Chief Strategy and Financial Officer George Barrios and SVP Financial Planning & Investor Relations Michael Weitz hosted a First Quarter 2016 earnings call today from WWE headquarters in Stamford.

Weitz spoke first and welcomed everyone, then went over the basics for the call. He reminds us WrestleMania 32 took place in the second quarter of this year, not the first. Vince touts the earnings and revenue growth, calling it pretty good. He also touts the WWE Network subscribers and breaking the WrestleMania attendance record, saying it speaks to the strength of the brand. Vince says almost all tickets were sold out when they went on sale and there’s a lot of brand equity in the WrestleMania name. He said they had 19 hours of primetime premiere content during WrestleMania week and subscribers watched 22 million hours, about 12 hours per subscriber. They’re very excited about new content. He said Camp WWE is doing very well in their on-demand section. He also hyped Swerved season 2 and the Holy Foley show on the WWE Network, then mentioned Total Bellas and Total Divas. They now have 650 million followers on social media and 450 billion video views across all platforms. He touted the strength of the brand again. Vince acknowledged the string of injuries going into WrestleMania but said they made pretty good “chicken salad” out of that. He said they have several wrestlers coming back soon including Seth Rollins, Randy Orton, Bray Wyatt and John Cena. Vince said they have introduced 13 new stars recently, giving props to the NXT brand. He said they will have more talent on the …

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