Notes from WWE’s Fiscal Second Quarter 2021 Report

WWE held an investor’s meeting this past Thursday to discuss the results from their fiscal second quarter 2021 report.

Notable financial highlights:

• Revenue for the fiscal quarter was $265.6 million, up 19% ($42.2 million) from last year’s fiscal second quarter.
• Operating income was $46.3 million, down 17% ($9.4 million) from last year’s fiscal second quarter. WWE stated that higher expenses related to their ThunderDome, WrestleMania 37 event, and increased personnel expenses were the main causes for the overall decrease.
• Adjusted OIBDA1 was $68.1 million, down 7% ($5.4 million) from last year’s fiscal second quarter.
• Net Income was $29.2 million, down 33% ($14.6 million) from last year’s fiscal second quarter.
• Digital video views for the fiscal quarter was 11.2 billion and hours consumed was 394 million. Total views were up by 13% and total hour consumed were up by 5% compared to last year’s fiscal second quarter.
• In terms of television ratings, WWE RAW was down 5% and WWE Friday Night SmackDown was down 13% compared to last year’s fiscal second quarter. USA Network was stated to be down 11% and FOX was stated to be down 15% over the same time period.

Other notable highlights from the investor’s meeting:

• WWE President Nick Khan stated that viewership of this year’s Backlash, Hell in a Cell, and Money in the Bank events on Peacock were all up compared to last year’s events on the WWE Network. Backlash was up 26%, Hell in A Cell was up 20%, and Money in the Bank was up 46%.
• Khan also stated that they have sold over 40,000 tickets so far for this year’s SummerSlam event and it is currently expected to be the highest ever gate for a non-WrestleMania event in WWE history.
• Stephanie McMahon stated that the “zombie invasion” at this past May’s WrestleMania Backlash event was meant to be part of their strategy to find unique ways for their brand to interact with their customers. McMahon stated that the results “speak for themselves” in regards to trending topics on Twitter that night and the sponsored Army of the Dead film being one of the biggest in Netflix history.
• On the topic of the current status of their Middle East television deals, Khan stated that he, Vince McMahon, and others are “deep into it” and hope to be able to provide new details soon.
• On the topic of the company’s recent internal changes and layoffs, Khan stated that their WWE Network, TV, and Digital departments all had redundancies so they pulled them all together this past May. Khan also stated that the financial effects of that will likely show in their fiscal third quarter 2021 report.
• On the topic of this year’s rumored Saudi Arabia event, Chief Financial Officer Kristina Salen stated that their current guidance does include “one large scale international event.”

In related financial news, Deadline reported that Comcast’s recently released fiscal second quarter 2021 report revealed that NBC’s Peacock service has reached 54 million total subscribers. In terms of revenues, it was reported that NBC Universal posted a loss of $363 million for Peacock for the fiscal quarter.

During the investor’s meeting, Vince McMahon commented on how he does not consider AEW to be competition unlike WCW back in the day. McMahon also commented that “perhaps we can give [AEW] some more [talent].” In an interesting note, PWInsider’s Paul Jordan reported earlier this week that Drake Maverick recently resurrected his YouTube channel and posted several videos featuring matches from his Impact Wrestling career. Jordan speculated that this could be a possible sign of Maverick believing he will be released soon and with McMahon’s recent comments, a possible sign of another wave of WWE talent cuts taking place soon as well.

Sources: PWInsider 1 & 2, PostWrestling