On Monday evening, WWE released its 10-Q filing prior to the release of its second-quarter earnings report on Tuesday.
The filing included plenty of information related to Vince McMahon’s resignation and the investigation launched by the independent members of WWE’s board of directors.
Due to the investigation, the company has suspended its stock repurchase program and added that they have spent $1.7 million over the quarter in general and administrative expenses associated with the investigation. They did caution that while the investigation is being described as “substantially complete” they are planning to significant expenses to continue related to the investigation:
As previously announced, a Special Committee of independent members of the Company’s Board of Directors was formed to investigate alleged misconduct by the Company’s former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Vincent K. McMahon. The Special Committee investigation is substantially complete. Mr. McMahon resigned from all positions held with the Company on July 22, 2022 but remains a stockholder with a controlling interest. While we currently anticipate spending approximately $10 million during the remainder of the year related to this investigation, the related costs could exceed this estimate.
It was noted that for the first six months of 2022, Vince McMahon paid $2.2 million related to the previously unrecorded expenses and paid $1.2 million during the first six months of 2021.
The company has another strong quarter, reporting revenues of $328,135,000 and a net income of $49,099,000 compared with $265.5 and $29.2 million during the same quarter last year (which occurred during the pandemic when live attendance was limited to the two-night WrestleMania 37 event in April 2021).
The media division generated revenues of $328.1 million (up from $265.5 million in the second quarter of 2021). The network section including the licensing deal with Peacock for the domestic rights to the WWE Network had an increase of $2.1 million. The company’s core content rights fees brought in $151.7 million for the quarter compared to $141.8 million last year.
In the current year period, we spent $19.9 million on content production activities, including content for A&E programming, Miz & Mrs., WWE Evil, and various programs for WWE Network and other digital platforms, as compared to $9.1 million in the prior year period. We anticipate spending approximately $20 million to $30 million on content production activities during the remainder of the current year. We received content production incentives of $4.0 million in the current year period, as compared to $9.5 million received in the prior year period. We anticipate receiving approximately $10 million of content production related incentives during the remainder of the year.
Consumer Products saw a gigantic increase from $22.5 million last year to $44.1 million over the past quarter and was largely attributed to the success of WWE 2K22 and the return of venue merchandise for the quarter.
This past quarter included the two-night WrestleMania at AT&T Stadium and unlike last year featured live events with fans throughout the quarter.
Live events generated $41.0 million in revenue with an average domestic attendance of 6,800 over 55 events (the average is skewed by both nights of WrestleMania) and an average ticket price of $91.62. There were only four international events during the quarter with an average of 6,500 and an average ticket price of $82.41. In Q3, the international numbers will be the ones to skew high due to Clash at the Castle increasing the average dramatically.
The company will release its full second-quarter earnings report on Tuesday morning and will be followed by a conference call with analysts beginning at 8:30 a.m. ET.
POST Wrestling will have coverage of the earnings report & call including a bonus show hosted by John Pollock with Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics being released Tuesday afternoon.
