Rogers Communications made WWE an offer they couldn't resist. Will WWE follow this path and find other partners to share the cost (and someday hopefully profit) for their expensive WWE Network and WWE Studios projects? It's anyone's guess but the likelihood for advertising appearing on the WWE Network continues to increase in probability. WWE Studios lost money again this quarter, but it was almost a wash. The company continues to tout their belief that they've turned around the Films division with a new distribution model and that the recent projects are going to pay-off nicely.
Attendance
International attendance hasn't turned around which is not a great trend for WWE. They did show improvement for their live events revenues and North American attendance average. While the company may brag that it's the best revenue in four years, it's really more a condemnation of the last four year's attendance trends than it is a rousing endorsement of the current state of affairs.
Comprehensive WWE Network Costs
WWE provided some new guidance on what it'll take for the WWE Network to be profitable in 2014 and 2015. WWE now estimates that with close to a million annual subscribers they can generate $45M to $65M in OIBDA which would be roughly to where WWE was before they launched the WWE Network.
In Closing...
WWE had exciting news today with the promises of a Global WWE Network launching in less than two weeks. Still there's a lot of new variables: new pricing tiers, completely different distribution model in Canada, unknown churn rates on the United States version of the WWE Network and the wide world of Global WWE Network expansion.WWE is improving their communication skills and Wall Street responded positively today (rewarding them for beating earnings-per-share expectations, losing less than money than expected and promising effective cost cutting measures). Will that continue? That's the big question that no one can possibly answer today. What surprised you most from the conference call? Sound off in the comments below.
I'm a professional wrestling analyst, an improviser and an avid NES gamer. I live in Saint Paul, Minnesota and I'm working on my first book (#wrestlenomics). You can contact me at chris.harrington@gmail.com or on twitter (@mookieghana)
Rogers Communications made WWE an offer they couldn't resist. Will WWE follow this path and find other partners to share the cost (and someday hopefully profit) for their expensive WWE Network and WWE Studios projects? It's anyone's guess but the likelihood for advertising appearing on the WWE Network continues to increase in probability. WWE Studios lost money again this quarter, but it was almost a wash. The company continues to tout their belief that they've turned around the Films division with a new distribution model and that the recent projects are going to pay-off nicely. 
