Vince McMahon Is Apparently A Genius Again, Analyst Still Wants WWE Sold, Earnings Call, More
- WWE has been getting a lot of positive press after releasing their 2014 earnings report yesterday. In case you missed it, the company reported $542.6 million in revenue compared to $508 million in 2013. However, WWE reported a net loss of $30.1 million for 2014 as compared to net income of $2.8 million in 2013. Seeking Alpha has a full transcript of yesterday's earnings call at this link.
- Following yesterday's earnings call and the WWE Network reaching 1 million subscribers, a lot of the mainstream media has gone from hailing the Network as the downfall of WWE to praising it. Fortune has an article touting WWE and Vince McMahon as "the future of sports." The article reads:
"Give McMahon credit for having the guts to go against conventional wisdom and critics who wanted WWE to stick exclusively with its pay-per-view model. McMahon has looked Joseph Schumpeter's creative destruction theory in the eye and smiled right back. It takes you know what to take a profitable business model and rip it apart, but that is exactly what McMahon has done... Over-the-top is what will drive the WWE Network's growth and is the wave of the future."
- Variety has a story about WWE's 2014 earnings report at this link titled, "WWE Ends 2014 on High Note as Future Rests on Shoulders of WWE Network." The New York Post also has an article on the earnings report here titled, "WWE body-slams critics with fourth-quarter revenue gains."
- Benzinga has a more cautious look at WWE's 2014 earnings report here. They noted that live event revenue was up because ticket prices increased and WWE held more events. Lemelson Capital Management Emmanuel Lemelson once again stated that Vince McMahon should sell the company.
"Net income has been declining for years. With a deficit in the last five quarters (when combined with dividends), owner equity has been diminishing for a whopping eight years...cash at the company has declined during the same period from $175 million to just $47 million at December 31, 2014. Liabilities during the same time frame have ballooned from $83 million in 2006 to ~$121 million at September 2014. At a minimum, it can be said that the dividend is not sustainable," Lemelson said. "It [WWE Network] was always [a] brilliant idea — ahead of its time. However, WWE needs new leadership or to sell [the] company. [It's] not enough to just cut costs as they did last year."