6 Things We Learned From WWE's Fourth Quarter Earnings

WWE's fourth quarter 2016 earnings report was made public yesterday morning, and it makes for some interesting reading as usual.

The company face a number of huge on-air challenges in 2017, but WWE have plenty of reasons to be cheerful with how things are going behind the scenes, and Q4 2016 produced a number of plus points.

The official report is dense, and packed with a myriad of statistics and figures. There's a lot of information to consume, but the WWE Network's ongoing success and the company's improving revenue stand as the highlights.

WWE Chairman Vince McMahon and Chief Strategy and Financial Officer George Barrios expanded on the points during a Q4 2016 earnings call from WWE headquarters yesterday afternoon. The call will soon be uploaded to WWE's Corporate website, and it provided a number of major insights from McMahon and Barrios, both of whom seem satisfied with the results on the whole.

From Network subscription rates to the latest details on WWE's global expansion, WWE's 2017 projections now look a whole lot clearer.

Here are six things we learned from WWE's fourth quarter 2016 earnings report, and the conference call that followed...

Perhaps the most impressive figure presented in WWE’s latest financial reports is the company’s jump in revenue. Unsurprisingly, it’s the very first thing mentioned in the release, and Vince McMahon is understandably delighted with the number. Revenue increased by 17% to $194.9 million in comparison to 2015’s fourth quarter, with the year’s total revenue sitting at $729.2 million.

This is the highest annual revenue figure in WWE history, and features big increases across most sources. Network revenue alone jumped from $159.4 million in 2015 to $180.9 last year, with the company also reporting increases in digital media, live events, and television revenue. Home entertainment was the only segment of WWE’s media division to report a downturn in revenue on the previous year, but this reflects the shift away from physical media as a whole.

The figures are in-line with WWE’s corporate guidance, and the company expect further growth in Q1 2017. McMahon spoke of how WWE were “super serving” their Network audience during the conference call, and cites the streaming platform’s continued success as a big reason for their financial growth. As easy as it is to criticise the company’s business practices in 2017, they had no trouble bringing money in throughout 2016.