WWE Q1 Earnings Analysis, AEW All In Tickets | Pollock & Thurston

This isn't an ad for Cinco De Mayo. In the words Cinco De Mayo, definitely didn't make you want to margarita just now. But if they did, you should stock up for Cinco on Drizzly. Drizzly is the easiest way to find the best prices on beer, wine, and spirits. Then get them delivered to your door. Download the app or go to Drizzly.com. That's D-R-I-Z-L-Y.com today. Or don't, totally up to you. Must be 21 plus, not available in all locations. Hello, everybody. Welcome to Pollack & Thurston. We're not interviewing anybody today. We are just chatting one-on-one as we break down the WWE's first quarter earnings report. And we'll probably get into some Wembley Stadium discussion. And maybe if there is time, how much does it cost for a city to get the Royal Rumble in 2024? Highest bids? Get ready. Because your public dollars are bringing the Royal Rumble. Potentially to Florida. Yes. Are you ready to have a robust conversation and give some incremental color to the WWE Q1 earnings report that happened yesterday? To really harness the post-breastling flywheel here, I'm ready to go. Well, I have the quote of all quotes coming up later from Frank Riddick as he all but said, some heads are going to roll once this merger comes down. But here is the most animated way I can discuss it in terms of making it seem as less violent as it's going to be with a blood shedding after this merger goes through. But I've got to say, Brandon, that going into this earnings report with the merger pending, I thought this was a pretty ho-hum Q&A. We got a little bit of... For me, this was not one of the stellar calls when it came to Nostradamus, Nick Khan projecting where all the sports rights were going to go and a lot of big news stories, although... He didn't apply about the media space and the landscape. This was a very safe call. I have to say though, for me personally, the most feedback I got was people stunned that WWE writers are not part of the Writers Guild. Did anybody think that this was a thing, that this was a unionized effort that the WWE writers have undergone, that Stephanie McMahon blazed the trail for unionized writers, but it seemed to be a shock that WWE will not be affected by this Writers Guild strike, which I'm glad the question was asked, but I did not expect that kind of feedback from people. One of the disclosures I've seen it for years were they say none of our employees are represented by a union, and then that would refer to corporate employees. I think writers are employees, but they're not represented by a union. And nobody who works for WWE talent or employees are represented by a union. So they're in the clear as far as that goes. I didn't see someone joke that maybe if they had writers who were represented by the WGA, some of the scripted promos wouldn't do what they are. If there is one person in the wrestling media space that's going to design an AI generated raw script, it's on your shoulders Brandon. Like this is what the writers strike this is a part of what they are concerned about is looking at these potential problems. I mean, could we get an AI generated WWE program over the next five years? Well, only if Hollywood does that because I think one of the main functions of the writers system in WWE is to make that we feel more like it is a major entertainment Hollywood TV show. Well, let's talk a little bit about the earnings that they did report. They had net income for the quarter of just over $36.6 million with revenue of $297.5 million. And this was essentially a quarter of this is the difference between comparing to last year where they had a large scale international event. And this year not having a large scale international event. So still that that tiling for Saudi Arabia, but a big difference, a roughly $56 million in difference. But nonetheless, this was a quarter that was received very well. And there was a lot for them to pat themselves on the back for this quarter when it looked where live events were just a couple of years ago. And this was looking like a pretty dire sector. And now, you know, something that you've beaten the drum on Brandon is, you know, good creative star creation and look how it can affect other areas of your business. This would certainly be a lot of evidence towards that that this hot swing of television, it has resulted in television viewership being up and people buying a lot more tickets than prior years. Yeah, I mean, it was to make a minor point first, it was this quarter was more profitable than my spreadsheet model was calculating that and punching the numbers in on their expenses yesterday when the 10Q finally came out. I think that's due to my not taking into account for the lower expenses that they're having now because they're doing merchandise through fanatics for their e-commerce and now they're, which has not hit the books yet but they're going to do that for any merchandise scene. So they're saving a lot of expense. And it seems that they're making them more profitable. So that's happening. But I don't think there can be enough said about this is a really positive consumer metrics time. The years of 2016 to 2019 were not. We saw, yeah, decreases in TV ratings and maybe you can dismiss that somewhat because of court cutting and people watching TV less. But we're seeing positive trends in TV ratings and positive trends in attendance. And the TV ratings being up, you know, it's kind of like, you know, they're such a headwind with TV ratings in general that maybe, maybe flat is good news, but that's not what they've got here. Raw and SmackDown are up year over year. And if you look in the demo, which now they're breaking out the demo, they're putting the demo slide in the TV slides, which is very exciting that the younger viewership is up even more strongly. And I've broken out 18 to 34. So the younger half of the demo and that's up even more strongly. So, and I think that the younger viewership trends really tell you something about sort of the, I don't know, the hardcore fan interest or how relevant the show feels. And that's very positive and easier for your trends. We've got multiple months in a row where those comparisons, the same month of the prior year, is positive. And that is basically for Raw, where there's been this many months in a row where you could say it's up year over year. That has basically not happened in any significant way since, basically since court cutting really started to be a negative on linear TV. SmackDown has been all over the place because it's been from sci-fi to USA Network to Fox and all that. But, you know, so those are all these really external factors. So in my assessment, this is an internal, largely internal reason why these ratings are up. And that's basically not happened at any time since I've been covering wrestling. And I think it's, I think there was a, to me, a comedic moment in the call where Stephen Cajal from Wells Fargo, the analyst asked, you know, Paul, if you could weigh in here, tell us what you're doing differently. And he just sort of, you know, went on and praised everybody and why he's got this, they've assembled the right team, world class superstars, he praised developmental and the NIL, pipeline, all the pipelines, great. The writing team is world class. Kevin Duns team is great. We focused on character development. He did mention Sammy Zane in the bloodline, which I think is something real and relevant. And they have this, what he called a planning, the event horizon. And they look at your rear, they do long-term planning, which is, I mean, it's a new discovery, I think, in wrestling creative, this idea of long-term planning where you actually make a decision. In fact, the night after WrestleMania, someone came down to Seth Rollins while he was in the ring during a commercial break and they informed him of his this long-term plan that they have as they came back from commercial break and we're letting them know literally on live television, this long-term plan. Yes, I think there may have been somebody that then I have for WrestleMania who came and it was experimenting with maybe more disrupting those long-term plans, but yet it's as much as you can say about an event is more explicitly involved in creative now. The month of April has not resulted in the reversal of these trends that we've been seeing for the last six months or so. Everything's okay still. And that is extended to sales, the numbers that we have gone over. It is an interesting time now because despite all of these numbers, they are taking, I would say like a measured risk at this point by going back to these exclusive rosters, you are separating the belt, you're making some changes that are going to be impacting the programming that this has been a winning hand that they have been playing. Now, I don't think that there is going to be some dramatic drop-off, even a worst-case scenario, but they are certainly changing long-term visions here when it comes to going back to a presentation of separate rosters that your audience has sort of told you, seeing the big stars on both shows, it has resulted in both shows being up significantly and having those stories back and forth. I don't know if you would want to be tinkering with what has been a winning formula. Yeah, before we started recording, I did try to dull my domestic band grinding axe, but he's back and he's got to change something that's not broken. And probably a big problem that was happening for these months while he was off was that he was not getting credit for all these improvements in business that were happening. Now, at least he can have a hand in it and maybe get some of the credit if these positive trends that were seen survive for the months to come. Yeah, so as Brandon mentioned, they did break down not just viewership increases for Ron Smackdown, but also now introducing the 18 to 49 numbers. And just looking, I've been looking this month at last year when they were up against the NBA playoffs, and the 18 to 34 numbers are even more impressive when you look at how much they're up. And so to me, it's like this three pronged attack. It's like our viewership is up, our demos up, our younger viewership is up when, as you mentioned, if they were flat, I think people would take that as a win given that USA is in less homes from a year ago. Like, there's a lot that they can boast about at the moment, and it comes at a pretty, pretty, it couldn't be better timing when we can talk about the exclusive negotiating window that could be ending imminently, if not already. Right, and they compare, here's Rob versus what USA does in prime time, here's Smackdown versus what Fox doesn't prime time. And the, I mean, Fox has a lot more popular shows than USA Network does, so Smackdown doesn't look as great against Fox as Rob does against USA. That said, though, Fox is winning most Friday nights, when there's, at least when there's not like a special event, like there are, and the playoffs happening right now. Fox is winning Friday nights with it's only two hours filled with Smackdown, and that's in the demo primarily, and they're getting beat by like blue bloods and stuff like that on CBS, but Fox is not by Young Rock. No, not by Young Rock either on NBC, but Fox is able to win Friday night because of Smackdown. Yeah, and you see this comparison of like what Raw brings to the USA Network, like it dwarfs the average, and with Smackdown, like you can certainly see it's kind of in line with what Fox is producing, but the connection for NBC Universal to retain Raw, like you just see how dire USA Network would be without this, this audience that is now three times the prime time average, like it is the diamond of USA Network's program is schedule. And NXT is right on the average, I think, of what USA Network is, and I would wonder if those USA Network numbers include Raw, so I guess if you think about it like, okay, exclude the WV stuff, maybe NXT would still be above the average, which, what are we talking about at that point? What's USA running on prime time, other than WWE, and I think it's like Law and Order reruns and stuff like that. Which is wild when, I mean, it does not feel all that long ago that USA Network was just this juggernaut that WWE was like they were part of this prestige network and now they are, they are carrying this thing at this point in time. So that was a big win for this particular quarter. As we're live events, you want to talk a little bit about the attendance figures, these were up, you know, a 32% increase in total attendance over a year ago, and prices have gone up for your average tickets. Right, I think the average ticket price was at $75. And I think that, okay, that includes Royal Rumble, and we know the Royal Rumble average ticket price was like 160, but they reported an average attendance of $7,900, which is up from $5,700. And Q1 of the prior year, and it's important to look at these seasonal comparisons because Q1 tends to be a pretty good quarter for live events because it's an indoor winter quarter and you have the run up to WrestleMania happening too. But yeah, it's up and I went back and looked at everything that since WWE has been breaking out attendance by domestic North America, which really means US and Canada, and international, which is everything else, and even breaking, breaking it out like that since 2004. And it's not quite a fair comparison because WWE has done fewer house shows in the last few years versus what they were doing, say 2016 or something like that. But this is the highest average for a quarter where you exclude WrestleMania, I can put on all these caveats, but this is a really high average attendance. Now it's got fewer house shows in it, but just to illustrate, at least within the last, at least certainly since since the return to COVID. And I think actually the return to COVID quarter, Q3 2021, that could have like an 8,000 and something right on here, 8,300 attendance average. And these are all paid numbers that they're the reporting, I believe, by the way. So excluding that, this is like the highest average they've ever had, now it's got a lot more, a lot fewer house shows than prior eras, so that lists the average. But just to give you some sense of they are really are doing better than they were in certainly in the context of return to touring. And in a sense, sometimes before the return to touring to before COVID. Has any of the performances, especially on the live event section in terms of observing what's working on television and what the importance level is that you place on live events, people physically going to an event buying a ticket versus tuning into a show from their home in terms of like how engaged this viewership is when you are creating these stars and in theory, they come to your local market. Yeah, it's buying a making a purchase versus just sitting at home and watching something on TV. It's watching something on TV is a cost of your time and going to an event, it's cost your time too, but it's a lot of friction to transport yourself down to the arena and pay admission to get in there. And then if the kids are hungry, they want like a $6 popcorn, stuff like that. And the parking too. But I think the Roman Reigns storyline with Sammy Zayn has become very strong. I think that has been a major contributor to SmackDown, which its ratings went up first before Raw was not doing as well. Let's say in the fall through NFL season. But Raw has really followed since the new year and that coincides with the return of Cody Rhodes. Cody Rhodes is on a lot of these house shows since he's returned from injury. So those stand out to me as the two biggest factors and there's maybe external stuff like Peacock being increasingly more homes and maybe people getting more engaged with WV as a downstream to Peacock being available in homes perhaps that don't have access to the US network or Fox. So that's what I see happening and just maybe overall people perceive as anecdotally, it adds up people perceive the creative to be better in general along with just the things that Roman Reigns is involved in, the things that Cody Rhodes is involved in. Although we know how controversial the finish of WrestleMania's main event was. It's not as if we see evidence that they've killed Cody, we don't see evidence of that and we do have tickets that were probably bought perhaps in advance of WrestleMania. But we don't see signs that things that we can drastically don't see signs that people are turning out for Raw did an okay number last Monday and SmackDown for the draft did a really strong number. Yeah, it's something I have meant to go back and kind of like chart the last couple of months but the Canadian numbers have been very interesting to watch because they were in the lead up to WrestleMania like gigantic numbers that they were doing weekly. And since WrestleMania like they have definitely come down and it's been several factors like it's the NHL playoffs are massive here. You've also got the Toronto Blue Jays that are a behemoth here in Canada as big factors but they have really come back down to earth in a big way over this past month that we have not seen conversely in the US as well, whether you are looking at as kind of like an Owens and Zane factor or just the fact that there is a lot of like big sports that are doing just insane numbers like well over a million for some of these Leafs games that are happening which in Canada like just these are crazy numbers we're talking about. Yeah, I think we should stress that this is in a business sense this is the biggest time not only of the year but of the last five years of this TV rights cycle because now is it? You know the window for the exclusion negotiating window where WWE can only talk to NBCU and Fox about Ron Smackdown. That's that either ended very recently or it's it's ending in a couple days or it's ending now. And their ratings doing really well obviously helps them a lot for these US TV rights negotiations that they have to do and something else that Nick Kahn mentioned was the Montreal show coinciding with the other got to renegotiate Canada rights. So maybe there were Rogers executives or something who were invited to the Montreal show and LA WrestleMania having you know being in LA in this entertainment center was positioned or at least helped with the V's ability to bring everybody in to let them see and schmooze with them and build relationships perhaps and let them see a huge event and that's what the UK show in London is about not the E.W. show but the Money to Bank show is about to because they've got it for a new UK deal coming up soon too. Yeah so all of the live events it's just being dictated by Nick Kondze itinerary of who he needs to meet with and piggybacking off these events. I mean where is where does that begin the most of its money from it's not from fans it's from business relationships and ultimately those businesses have to be supported by fans but most immediately it's from TV rights and other kinds of business relationships and governments yes yes don't forget governments the big ten polls. Let's hear from a Nick Kahn during the earnings call and this is him talking about the domestic television rights negotiations that are ongoing. A couple things we've had productive conversations with both Fox and NBCU I believe that they're both seeing the product the growth of the product the impact of the product in the right way so we're optimistic about all of that. In terms of the timing on getting a deal done one thing I've experienced is that during the process of these things you can control a lot of it you can never control when it closes or when you get to an agreement. So can estimate that yet but we remain bullish on raw and smackdown. Bullish on both and it was brought up during the the Q&A about how long this exclusive negotiating window is and Nick Kondze response was about a month about a month so you can take that as 30 days or very close to that number which he had stated going into WrestleMania weekend was when the exclusive negotiating window was going to begin so you can do the math it's as Brandon said it's either up or just about to be up. You read anything into that that this 30 days are up and do you see WWE exploring the outside offers like it would seem strategic that you would want to go to the market with these rights but Nick Kahn is very much a. He puts these the incumbents as he puts them very front and center in terms of giving them every opportunity and I think that ultimately an NBC universal deal is expected by everyone and maybe smackdown is more your question. Yeah and Brandon Ross the analyst who talked to a couple weeks ago also asked him about whether many questions. He asked him whether there was any I.O.I. which I quickly had to Google indicators of interest so he was asking if there's a TV at the end. Is there any way for you to measure how much interest there is from outside parties other than your com that's an exclusive means exclusive for what that's worth. So I guess my my sense now is that you know smackdown is as you said is the one question I type very much expect raw to stay with NBC universal. And if smackdown doesn't stay with Fox well then where does it go and I think NBC starts to stand out to me more so as a potential candidate as a potential home more so than Amazon I guess. I don't think it's a real realistic outcome especially with the things we're seeing around the WNW B.D. So like who does that really leave other than Amazon and NBCU which if the end of it is if NBC ends up taking smackdown it really raises the question why did you not just buy that company but but I guess that's moot now. I don't really think there's any real players out there right other than those as far as making really competitive bids you know the other potential players I guess would be paramount and I don't see any obvious homes there. You're not a paramount stockholder are you today. No I've got no I've heard they call their dividend right. Their stock is down I think 26% today is not a good day for paramount. All the content companies have been suffering I guess because of this writer strike. Yeah no I do I only hold Apple Microsoft and some index funds so I've mostly disavowed myself sure I've invested myself above these media companies. Netflix is going to do more live they had some trouble with their live broadcast recently Apple's not getting into wrestling I don't believe that for a second so it's just I'm a few and Amazon that seemed to be the other players for smackdown to me. I threw this out on Wednesday and just hearing like from a number of like industry people that are talking about this writer strike like many believe in like this is not going to be something that is settled imminently like this could go into into the fall potentially and if you're one of these broadcasters and this would apply to a www do you lean more in terms of this is this is content that we can fill holes with if if necessary for certain you know gaps in our schedule once you're getting to crunch time do you see any potential positive effect if you are one of these companies and NBC like they're going to need to fill hours potentially. I suppose I need something to bring the negotiations say hey look we as you know as Nick said on the call we've got no writers who are we're never going to go on strike like you never have a worry about the union or association. Pandemic we've got a gym will go through this like it's it's honestly like it's a cushion for these companies that are like this the the apocalypse could occur and we will get a show on the air on Monday night. Yeah and then we covered was proof of that then neither of them this week. I guess it helps them with that argument and maybe there's some openings in the TV schedule that they could be plugged into I mean I guess those P.O. least could go anywhere if NBC Universal wanted to air them somewhere other than P.C. And W.V.D. is certainly it reports are accurate is about to pick up more hours of A.W. Every night of the week A.W. We're getting close right will be on three and if you insist on watching bring of honor for. Just have to come up with more names dynamite collision eruption disruption breakage I mean what other words can we come up in the age. That they can expand programming with in terms of a peak odd viewership. And maybe you can talk a little bit about any kind of data you can glean from this but we got the requisite percentage increases year over year Royal Rumble up 52% from 2022 elimination chamber up 54% and then WrestleMania 39 they said 39% increase internationally and 29% increase domestically and in kind of a throwaway common Nikon mentioning that WrestleMania 39 was watched by 35 million viewers internationally I think he threw out on this call. I don't know how that was arrived at 35 million people so that's that's quite a number. Yeah, we got positive deltas again we don't know how many viewers that really means there was a an interesting slide that was presented in a. Some sort of committee meeting at the end of tourism and sports committee meeting in Orlando in Orange County from late March that I came across which shows some numbers of how many viewers these PL is got which it's not clear if these are global numbers or US numbers I tend to think they're global numbers around things are I tend to think they're US numbers so like over a million people watching the biggest WPL is is what this slide indicates. So I mean that's an that's in line with what what were the reports on on the rumble having this rumble this year having almost 2 million viewers I guess this is this is believable. Yeah, I would love the breakdown of the 35 million figure I mean it was a that was a very very large number but that was that was on the peak off front. And I mean aside from that when you look at the Q&A portion. Let's let's hear from Frank Riddick so this is in relation to the pending merger. Actually let's hear from that converse and this is his reaction to the merger and how comfortable they feel with endeavor here spoiler they're very excited. We're all excited about everything that shouldn't will happen together with UFC and with the folks from endeavor. Keep in mind we've known these folks for a long period of time so they're not strangers to us their style is not strange to us. It's something that we give a full embrace to and I can certainly represent emphatically to you on the creative that there's no one at endeavor or the UFC that has any interest in trying to interfere with that in any way whatsoever. I think Dana White would also represent to you that never or almost never I don't know the specifics but never would be my guess has the endeavor folks told him no you should do this match or you should do it this way. That's not what they do that's not what they say they do and that's not what they're going to do. All of the other things that we talked about in terms of revenue and continuing to build a business internationally and domestically. We think their experts at and we're looking forward to getting into all of that and more once the deal is approved. Yes and MMA fans will remember right at the beginning of the pandemic when Dana White was going to buck any commissions and go run a card on a Tatchy Palace on an Indian reservation and that was when allegedly he did get a call from Disney saying you are not doing this day now. And that would be maybe an instance of Disney getting involved in UFC's live event planning but yes for the most part he believes it will be we will be left to our devices to run our company as it sits presently and we are used to their style and we are very comfortable with these people. Right and what you're talking about sounds like a TV partner going to UFC and saying you're not going to do this as opposed to endeavor going to UFC. Right it seems like yeah this came the reports were like this came from Disney up top as opposed to an endeavor itself call. I wouldn't be surprised if Vince and Dana had had a meeting before the endeavor deal was agreed to for Vince to get some advice on whether whether Dana really does have as much freedom as he wants maybe to reassure Vince of that he would be able to whatever that W would be able to control whether or not Vince controls creative another question. Maybe you can email Vince and ask him about that meeting and how it went with Dana. There may be a filing that would aid in doing such a thing. And I think that when we were talking about all these TV deals and just over the last year we've been talking about the scandal surrounding Vince and he went away for five months and he came back and why did he go away we're not really sure but he did decide to retire and was was part of it because he believed or people around him convinced him that his presence would have a negative impact on W's he writes negotiations well he back and is it going to have any negative impact. Nobody in the air thinks that's not in the air so it just remains a big story around what happened and why all these people left and why Stephanie left and why he left and came back that is very much untold. Yeah and it was mentioned in here that this quarter and this had been disclosed earlier a $17.4 million payment by Vince McMahon covering certain costs related to the investigation. I was kind of curious if Jeff Shell was going to be brought up in this call not just the very clear comparison you could make to Vince McMahon but as well it does this at all is this someone that is a connection for WWE in these negotiations does Jeff Shell does that impact anything even in a remote way for Nikon. Yeah there would have been a good analyst question. I get the sense that some of these questions I mean I know it's not a press conference and their job is to understand the company and make their estimates and all that but they seem to like to avoid questions that make people feel uncomfortable or get anything that approaches the moral but I think I don't expect that it does have any any difference you know I mean you just w was with NBC probably well before Jeff Shell was was CEO of the VC I don't think you this CEO for very long. And I'm sure they'll be around after and we've kind of already discussed how central how important W content is to USA network and to peacock as well. So I mentioned a Riddick Frank Riddick here we're going to hear from him about the potential costs energies this was a question about a corporate expenses for the company and where the majority of that is fixed. Yeah so the corporate expense is the unallocated overhead we have other expenses that we consider corporate that are allocated to the business segments obviously but it's primarily the cost of the finance, the technology, the data analytics, marketing and international groups as well as you know typical corporate the executive office so that's the primary costs that are in the corporate buckets if you look at it the main expense we have is that shows up in corporate is people and the cost of compensation cost for people. The cost of running the public company you know are not the biggest part of that expense bucket there are costs like you know insurance and the cost of the board and the cost of doing SEC filings and things like that but where there's opportunity and with respect to the potential for cost energies you know we've independently not with endeavor but ourselves look at that our costs and the buckets and where there might be opportunities and we we're very comfortable with the $5200 million range that's been articulated and are starting to think about how to organize to go get those costs once the deal closes. All right so you lift up those corporate buckets Brandon and you got a there's going to be some spillage from these corporate buckets and the biggest, the biggest gain is it's people we've got a lot of people are expensive. And we are very comfortable getting to this $50 to $100 million figure that has been thrown out so that was a as you know dressed up a comment as you're going to get that they are going to be addressing these corporate buckets in time very rare that we have a frank a frank riddick quote that we isolate here. It's usually the Nick con show here but this was a rare frank riddick appearance on this show. Yes it's usually prepared remarks and we're sliding very dry and technical financial bar charts and things like that. But I was thinking about it you know they just close in the proxy statement the median compensation for W for a W employee with something like $101,000 in 2022. So I mean if you divide that by $100 million you got a thousand people and that's more employees than they have I think I think they have something like 900 or 800 employees so it doesn't really set any limit mathematically on how many people could be laid off to me. And as far as any hints that have been given they're going to protect creative production. You know if you're on the road sounds like you're probably pretty safe but not clear anybody else. Yeah including free agents. For agents coming out of this draft as well a lot of people you want to be signed you want to be signed to our Smackdown after this draft wouldn't you. Plus you Brock Lesnar. Oh my god clearly do you know use almost as like that that traveling under the giant character. And just wrapping up just from the rest of the call. Yeah just questions about the exclusive negotiating window that we went over here. Long-term partnerships when it comes to sponsors seems very optimistic that the that endeavor is going to help them internationally continuing to grow sponsorships and we have seen that being. A major growth area and it sets the stage for what should be a very big second quarter for the company where you have this. You know this this hot streak that the company is running a WrestleMania quarter and a large scale international event coming up at the end of May. Yeah and another thing that I've been noticing is I combed through the filings is we've got less insight on merchandise sales than ever. And that was kind of already the case we kind of already understood that from a couple quarters ago when they started the fanatics relationship and that has that has eliminated their reporting of they used to report how many units they sold. The commerce on the shop and maybe some other. None of that this time. So that's gone and the venue merch data is gone now too. And I imagine it would have been gone once they started doing very much through fanatics they announced the deal like a month ago or something like that. But that's that's all in Q2 I guess, but that's already out of the filings. So we don't know what their venue merch per capita was for Q1 for example. So it was Cody Rhodes weightlifting belts that I saw at elimination chamber. I could only imagine what the. All the indie companies written on them. I don't know that like there's a second version of those weight belts that could have been sold. Imagine how many potential weightlifters were walking out of sofis stadium on both nights of WrestleMania this year. And I think that's one of the most things I came. They were selling for like $100 at the bell center. Those things. Yeah, like a smash wrestling has smashed wrestling getting a royalty for that and beyond wrestling. If Sebastian suave didn't get a carve out of the Cody Rhodes merchandise, then I don't know what to say. Yeah, but one piece of information that Nick said that was new information to me. I think it was new information in general is that he said that Russell made it seven million dollars in venue merch sales. And I did the math to see what is that for capita. And if you look at it, I did do the wrestle six number, not their announced number and then like knock off 10% of it. And he gets something as well over a $50. Then he works per capita number. I said, well, maybe he's counting like all the other events. Maybe he's counting Smackdown and Stan, Deliver and Raw. All of that. And even then you're still at like $46 per ticket, per sold ticket. And then a lot of those people over repeat customers, right? Because a lot of people are going to more than a lot of people are going to both nice wrestling alone, let alone right now. But that's a lot of merchandise per person, which he said broke the record of the $5.2 million of last year. And we do have the half capacity, twenty point one WrestleMania, which did it 32, I believe, $32 many merch per capita. So that's like almost doubling. It's like times and a half or something like that. So that's a lot of any merch per capita. Let's talk a bit about this Royal Rumble bid. So you came across the this was a presentation done on March 27th in Orlando where they are making their pitch and they are $850,000 bid for the Royal Rumble and making the argument of what the economic impact will be to the city of Orlando and using comparisons. Orlando hosting the Royal Rumble or in 2016 and then WrestleMania in 2007, the roller coaster set. And this would be the rumble at the stadium at is it Camping World Stadium that they were in the end. So this would be a stadium event next January. And there's a lot of interesting things in here just from the slides that obviously this bidding group is working in concert with WWE who are providing this data for them. Certainly got the streaming data that I was mentioning earlier to is clearly the W is giving them data to say, yeah, go to your government and go to your government officials to see if they'll approve this. They want this to happen. Yeah, so it's, you know, it's a high six figure fee that they are seeking for this and a lot of breakdowns of their audience ethnicities that are watching, I think like a 67% male skew like getting pretty significant in terms of the breakdown that they are getting here. But this is, you know, we have certainly seen for several of these international events, but now this is becoming what they're looking for. Like as you reported with backlash and what they're getting for these two nights coming up this weekend in Puerto Rico. And it would seem like this is going to be what they're seeking, especially if you can start getting cities in in the US on a significant basis. So, you know, the U.S. is obviously a huge amount of revenue if they can get it and getting public dollars for these events is very interesting that they're navigating this. Right. So backlash this weekend. And they're getting $1.5 million in cash plus a value of an additional $300,000, which I believe is related to the venue and maybe some other things. And so, I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. I think it's a really interesting thing. 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When you are seeking public dollars for these events, but some of the arguments they made is the fact that with the events now on Saturday, their research suggests longer stays in the city for people that are coming out. I think the number that they threw out was for the... I can't remember if it was the rumble in 2016 or the following year's WrestleMania, but nonetheless, it was a 60% figure that were from outside of Orlando. It's not just a local crowd that is showing up, but this is a traveling event, which a Royal Rumble is going to be not at the scope of WrestleMania, but nonetheless, it's a big event for them to stage. As we've seen with some of these other events, piggybacking SmackDown on it, where they're trying to make a weekend out of it for people that are coming and make it two nights of revenue for the city. If you want to see these slides, I expected we did the two key slides that were referencing here. They're on the Twitter. They also put on the slides the CPM, so the cost per thousand viewers during the PLEs and the Orange County government officials were discussing how that would be a real value to them because it's Orlando, it's a tourism city and all that. And they're considered... So if for fans in Orlando, considering going to Orlando for Royal Rumble, if it happens in 2024, there were illusions to the possibility of an Amway Center event in conjunction with Royal Rumble at Camping World Stadium, so that would be, I would think, a RAW or SmackDown or maybe even an NXT event. And there was a quick, really brief reference to Orlando, or maybe I should say Orange County potentially making a bid for WrestleMania in 2025. So Philadelphia is WrestleMania. Next year, 2025 is not finalized. I've seen reports that maybe Minneapolis is going to get it, which has never had a WrestleMania, but I'm sure there'll be many municipalities bidding for WrestleMania. And it's worth noting the fact that the UFC we have seen enter into some of these... the same process as well. They've got an agreement to bring shows to Houston on a fairly regular basis. Last summer, they also went to Salt Lake City, which is kind of an out-of-the-way place for a major UFC pay-per-view event, but when there's a site fee, it certainly incentivizes them. So I think with both companies, you're looking at all ways of finding revenue, and if there's a demand for these events, they're going to be able to find this. And it can be very expensive proposition for some of these cities, but also I just think this is going to be the way that they're positioning these premium live events as they continue to move forward. But I just was really interested in how much information they're disclosing in these meetings, and not surprised that it would make its way to the WrestleNomics universe. Yeah. It's just that the notion of these site fees is an interesting phenomenon. We're seeing this turn from a... what seems like an increasingly primitive wrestling business of a few decades ago where it was about to get selling things directly to wrestling fans, and some more so about upfront guaranteed payments, either from media partners or even governments. And I mean Saudi Arabia is the biggest one of all by far, which is a totally different story. Just these upfront payments even now have live events in certain locations. Last thing before we end off, let's move over to AEW. They had a pretty big week this week, and that's before they have even, officially put tickets on sale to the public, and that is the presale numbers for All-In that is set for Sunday, August 27th at the Wembley Stadium in London. Over 43,000 tickets sold and a gate of 5.7 million US, according to Tony Khan, with his latest update coming on Thursday evening after having a spirited, well, argument with Mike Coppinger online of ESPN who had stated he had heard that it was scaled for 40, and blowing past that number already. So the on sale date for the public is Friday. So sort of, you can take your guess at what the further demand is going to be for people that did not seek out one of these unique codes that were limited, as I understand it, to AEW plus subscribers on Fight and those that were customers at Shop AEW. So you had to do some legwork to get this code, and I mean, it's a phenomenal figure. Before even the public on sale has begun. Right. I heard you the when I listened to Revan Design this morning. 70,000 you think they can reach? I'm thinking that I think that's within shooting distance. I think that you are going to get another wave on Friday, and I would think conservatively that should take you over 50, which leaves a big gap until 70, but I leave that to be, like how much of a rush is there going to be in those final six weeks when you have a card and how big of an attraction you put on this show? Like you put, you know, Stings career at stake. Like is there something that's going to move people in that way, or are we going to be limited to the vast majority of tickets being confined to this week? Yeah. I guess I've heard people say that, you know, the hospitality, availability, hotel availability around one, it may be an issue. So I just don't know about that. But I guess I don't have a great sense of like how many people are going to buy tickets still who didn't get pre-sales, but you're saying that it was limited to people who are AEW plus or maybe AEW shop customers. Is that right? That was my understanding. Yeah. I think you're right. And that these were unique codes too. So it couldn't be a case of where I have a code and I can give it off to you and you use it as well. But yeah, that was my understanding, but I don't know the intricacies of these codes. I'm sure people will inform me of that. Well, we've heard that there were as many as what? 60,000 pre-sale requests that were in that neighborhood. Yeah. So and we're at 43,000 at this point. I mean, in any case, this is going to be an event that's kind of at minimum 50,000 people added and maybe well above that if they can really fill this stadium. And I think it's really a marketing value that I think has already started to take effect in that it does feel all of a sudden like I felt like we were in kind of like, I mean, we did a podcast several weeks ago about the decline in AEW popularity, which we can see demonstrated in a number of metrics. And it feels like it has this event and its ticket sales have shifted the mood around AEW. And this is only the beginning and another massive piece of it will be when they have this event and you put the camera on a stadium full of people, not for a W event and a big stadium, but for an AEW event and a big stadium for the first time. And I think it really raises some Monday morning Cory back about doing the first show in Canada in the Rico Coliseum as opposed to Rogers Center. Yeah, I can't say that a major pay-per-view at the Rogers Center would do this level of business, but I think 30 would have been a very achievable number for the first time in the market and for one of your major pay-per-views on top of that. And just for the amount of travelers that you would get for that show, I think it was a missed opportunity. I don't know if they could replicate it. I still think there would be a, as we can see with Forbidden Door, there was a giant demand for the Scotia Bank Center, which is not Rogers Center, but it's not Rico either. And it has to be a pay-per-view. I don't think they could have done a dynamite at the Rogers Center. No, it would have to have been one of your major pay-per-view events. But I would say there are very encouraging signs from Forbidden Door to this all-in event, the natural anticipation that ACM Punk is going to generate, and the eyes that will be on this Saturday night experiment to see how it gets off the ground and the sustainability of a second night of AEW programming, and if they are able to replicate anything approximating dynamite, if it is in between that and Rampage, but this is obviously a big summer for AEW and where they are come September. Yeah, so I tend to believe, and I don't have any information about this, but I tend to believe on May 17th, which is the day of the WBD up front. It will probably find out that it's official that AEW collision is happening. I did try to call, you know, 8th Center this morning, and I asked the guy at the box office if he knew if there was an event on June 17th, the United Center, he didn't know anything about it, but he did forward me to somebody so I left a voicemail. But yeah, I think, assuming, but believe it's true, that there's going to be an AEW collision Saturday night show, I guess I was going to, you know, is this, does this mean an increase in fees and compensation for AEW from WBD? I thought certainly when I had the idea that they were going to have to add another weekly night of touring. That doesn't seem to be the case now. Now that we're hearing that dark and dark elevation are going away, that leaves open some space for them to do the normal diet of TV taping that they've been doing, especially if collision is only a one-hour show. Then again, if part of the idea here is that, well, we can keep punk and EVP separated, there's still going to be the same taping in that case. So I don't know, I'm sure there'll be some live collisions, you know? The first one will be live, I'm sure. And then that's 17th, it's probably Saturday, so that would be live. But anyway, it raises a question. Once this is announced and official, that they have another TV show, you're adding another hour of content on a weekly basis. So maybe this means more money for AEW. I think it raises a question, okay, is this a renewal, or is this an adjustment of the current deal, or what's going on here? I would think AEW would want to announce that and make a big deal about it if that was the case. So that remains to be seen. And I think whether or not AEW has the option renewed already, I think that's probably the case, don't know. I asked Tony, you would not say. But I expect Dynamite and Rampage to be on TV in January, so probably is. But it raises a question whether or not that show is indicative of a new deal of being placed or what's going on there. And the other one would also be the potential of a streaming option, like where you are going to be able to watch this All In Show that is already being marketed and is legitimately the biggest by far show in company history. And it's a huge show if you were going to launch a presence on Max or whatever will be. That would be my prediction. Maybe we learn Collision is a new show and All In will be streaming live on Max. Well, there you have it on the AEW front. And you're now all caught up on the WWE's business earnings through the end of March, 2023. And Brandon, are you back tonight with the Wrestleomics 30? No, this is for subscribers. This is your Thursday podcast for the week. But we will be back on Sunday with Chris Gull and Jesse Collins and me for Wrestleomics radio talking about whatever we learn between them and now. Any early indications of who's gotten out to the lead on the Wrestleomics draft that was the real draft of the week with due respect to the NFL and WWE? True. I haven't run the numbers since last couple days, but I was way ahead of either Guller or Jesse at this point just because I drafted wrestlers who had a higher EO low to begin with than everybody else. But we have a whole seven or so months before we have to count everything else, I guess. Well, I got ahead of myself because we have one final business note and that is that as announced on Rewinded Dynamite on Sunday, June the 25th, along with the team at Poison Ronna, myself and Weiteng, we are teaming up with Braden Harrington and Davey Portman to present the Forbidden Poor, your official, well, unofficial pre and post show party coming up the day of Forbidden Door here in Toronto. Sunday, June the 25th, we are going to be across the street from the Scotia Bank Arena. You could not have a closer location unless you were inside the Scotia Bank Center. It is going to be a live Q&A hosted by Way and myself. Doors open at 3 p.m. Eastern time and you will get the live Q&A and then we're going to be hanging out with listeners. Then you can walk over, catch Forbidden Door and then make your way right back to real sports for the after party where Braden and Davey will be hosting Wrestling Karaoke and we got off to a very, almost the biggest pre-sale of the entire week because we put out the first 30 people could get official post wrestling, fifth anniversary t-shirts gone, gone Brandon in record fashion. So look at that. Our advances is huge. We were, you know, some people thought we were going to be like scaled for 20. We had seen those numbers. So hoping that Brandon Thurston might even make a cameo if we can lock you down with a site fee. Right. We'll discuss that. And I think it just demonstrates just how strong the post wrestling fly wheel is for both post wrestling listeners, the audience and for all of its business partners. Yeah. I want to give a heartfelt thank you to all of our corporate buckets for helping us promote this post wrestling.com slash live $30 gets you your all day ticket to the pre and post show party, the Forbidden Poor. So check out patreon.com slash Wrestlenomics and this Sunday they will be back Brandon, Jesse and Chris breaking down all of the stories going on in professional wrestling and and the fallout from backlash. I want a deep dive into bad bunnies, San Juan street fight with Damien priest. Okay. We'll be there. Yeah. Okay. So look forward to that and and more to come. We might have an interview coming coming your way next week. We have been in touch with a with a power player out there, but plenty of people that we have on our expanding secret double secret spreadsheets. So you can check all of that out. Thanks to everyone for joining us live and that will wrap things up.