Vince McMahon dropped some major news during Thursday’s investor’s conference call. According to the WWE Chairman, WWE is in talks with a different “major” streaming service to sell the rights to its pay-per-views. This could cause a major shake-up to the WWE Network, which saw its paid subscribers drop 10 percent in the latest quarterly earnings report. McMahon explained, “We have a lot of options. We could continue on as we are now, with an enhancement of a tier.
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“We also have an option right now, there’s no more better time to exercise the selling of our rights to all the majors who, quite frankly, all the majors are really clamoring for our content,” he added. “So that could be a significant increase, obviously, in terms of revenue.”
He later added, “Making reference to OTT and the interest of the major players, we’d be announcing that deal if we go that way, in the first quarter, that’s how far along we are.”
WWE set records more most revenue in a quarter and annually in its latest report (which is attributed to the new television deal with FOX) but fell short on revenue expectations.
The Wrap’s Tony Manglio confirmed that the negotiations were ongoing with a WWE rep.
Well, no, I don’t agree with this. Clickbait headlines are bad. This isn’t that. It is an accurate interpretation of what top WWE executives Vince McMahon and Frank Riddick said, one that was run by a WWE rep before publishing. https://t.co/aeq4YICwh6
Elsewhere on the call McMahon was asked about why former co-presidents George Barrios and Michelle Wilson were both fired last week.
“The decision of management transition was based on a different view of execution over areas of focus,” McMahon said. “Over 10 years, supported by a strong management team, George Barrios and Michelle [Wilson] made more than significant contributions to WWE.”
“However, with the change, we won’t miss a beat,” he added. “We have a deep team of talented executives committed to our company who are more than capable of executing our strategy.”
During the Q&A portion, a caller asked McMahon about how WWE has been competing with AEW since the company launched in January 2019.
“AEW has not changed our content at all. Because it’s all about the characters, storylines and resolutions, so it really hasn’t changed our point of view in what we present.”
“We don’t need a more ‘edgy,’ as you call it, content,” he added. “[We’re] PG, one of the few programs out there that really is PG. So as far as NXT, NXT is competing on Wednesday nights with AEW and is doing extremely well. And we’re confident that NXT will continue on with its success.”
