Vince McMahon and George Barrios are hosting a Business Outlook conference call with investors today at 11am EST. Below are highlights:
* Vince McMahon spoke first and said he’s in London for RAW, speaking from a mobile phone so if he has problems, he will call back.
* He said they were disappointed in the NBCUniversal deal but when you add up all of their TV deals, they almost doubled. It’s not what they wanted, he says.
* Vince said the core business, in terms of attendance and ratings, are doing just fine. He said WWE is still blazing new trails and they are confident that their new business model will pay off in the future.
* George Barrios is up next. He talks about the money that WWE invested in the Network, which has already been covered. He talks about how they spent $75 million on creation of the Network and $40 million on staffing and content for the Network. He talks about TV rights fees negotiations.
* He explains the Network business model and says they believe they can bring in more revenue than they were through pay-per-view once the Network hits 2.5 million subscribers.
* The Q&A with investors is up next.
* Vince said coming out with the Network when they did probably did have a negative effect on their TV negotiations. He called it a “chicken and the egg situation” because if they waited, they would have had to wait another year because WrestleMania season is the best time to launch.
* The new TV deal with NBCUniversal will be for less than 5 years. The same goes for the other new TV deals, none are over 5 years.
* With ATT buying DirecTV, they said in their call this morning that they’d be looking to invest in “over the top” content providers because that’s the future. WWE is asked if they have had any talks with other partners. Vince talked about OTT being the future and said WWE is wide open when it comes to listening to and working other partners.
* They have some technical difficulties with a caller and lose Barrios for a minute. Vince couldn’t hear the caller’s question and couldn’t get Barrios to answer. We hear Vince say, “shit.” Several minutes later and they’re finally back online.
* They were asked about the high-end turnover rate of Network personnel. Barrios wouldn’t get into specifics but said they are happy with Network management and with MLBAM.
* They wouldn’t give out the current Network subscriber count but said those numbers would be revealed each quarter. They were asked if the holiday season will be a time they’re looking at to add a lot of subscribers and Barrios said he sees every waking minute as a good time to add subscribers.
* They had a few more questions but that’s it for the highlights.
