I haven’t had a chance to really examine the fiscal filing yet, nor have I heard the press conference, but the gist of it is that WWE reported net income of $11.7 million as compared to $4.4 million last year. In other words, they didn’t lose money. It should be noted that without the ad revenue (which they won’t have next quarter) and money gained from a favorable legal settlement (which they also won’t have next quarter), they’d have made less than $1 million profit. They also announced that dividends would increase from 12 cents to 24 cents per share. Of course, Vince McMahon himself is the largest shareholder.
I don’t think Bryan reads this part of the site, but since Mr. Vinny has commented once, he might still when he’s very bored. Very very bored. As I might be right now.
If either of them are winning this, I’m throwing out a challenge. Name your stakes – could be a quarter, could be a million billion dollars, could be forcing you to put forum poster Hobbes on a radio show people paid to listen to – because I will bet you ANYTHING they will not have $0,000,000.00 of Ad Revenue next quarter.
They went from 9.8 to 7.7 with one month of USA, so if I had to guess myself, I’d take 4 million more out and go with 3.7, still leaving them a nice profit if everything goes fine. (And I think some places will go better – the Bret Hart DVD isn’t till next quarter, and it’s gotta out do both Undertaker and Warrior’s.) 3.7 will still leave them with a big profit. But that doesn’t matter, because you’ve just put yourself down for ZERO, so I’m taking anything but Zero. This shall be a great competition.
I’d also side bet on WWE turning a profit next quarter – the way I read it, even though SummerSlam did a huge number (and who knew? not me!) and nothing this quarter will, the high amount of international tours and the lower amount of US house shows will make up the difference. But I don’t quite feel as safe going with “zero” vs “anything but zero.”
Also, this goes out to everyone who’s analyzing this info today: when WWE was private and didn’t have any public stock, much less dividends, who was getting all the money? Was it – Vince McMahon? I’m thinking yes. The dividend going up has little directly to do with Vince being on a quest to make himself richer, because he could easily just jack up his salary if he only wanted that. The dividend also goes to stockholders who, if I recall correctly, do not get a part of Vince’s salary.
The “Vince is making himself rich thru the dividend, putting money directly in his pocket” story everyone does every three months is quite lame. Vince is making himself rich thru running a company which, despite it’s flaws and issues, is making millions of dollars every three quarters. The people in charge of the stock are trying to make more money thru the dividend, but more in the sense they want the stock to become more valuable and traded at a higher number.
“Vince McMahon makes lots of money off WWE” is not a story. “Vince McMahon makes lot of money off WWE while the wrestlers do not do quite as good” is not a new story.