WWE Posts Record Revenue For 2015 And Latest Network Number

A successful year for WWE.

By Grahame Herbert /

WWE posted their fourth quarter 2015 business results today, heralding the fact they achieved record revenue for the full year. The highlight for the company was stated in their release as a revenue increase "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." Vince McMahon celebrated the achievement, saying €œOur record revenue in 2015 reflected innovation across all of our businesses, which was highlighted by the successful execution of our network strategy.€ In terms of the WWE Network, it had 1,217,000 ending paid subscribers. This is just slightly down from the last quarter. In order to boost those numbers, the company are promising 300 hours of new content, as well as over a thousand hours of archival footage in 2016. For the first quarter of 2016, the company are currently figuring a subscriber number of 1,280,000, which is a year over year increase of 38%. A big success area away from the Network has been live events. Revenue was way up in this area, with increased demand and higher ticket prices being the explanation. International attendance in particular helped to boost this area of business. As for Raw ratings, they are down 6% in quarter four compared to last year, but revenues actually increased 10% to $55.6 million from $50.5 million in the previous year quarter, mainly due to contractual increases.