Money, Money, A Lot Of Money? Highlights From WWE’s 2019 Fourth Quarter Financial Report

It’s what matters most in wrestling. No matter what they do, the underlying motivation for WWE is to make money. From the first day they went into business, the goal was to make as much of a profit as possible. Back in the day it was rather difficult to see how well they were doing, but now things have changed a bit and it’s pretty easy to know how things are going. One thing makes it especially easy.

Back in 1999, WWE (WWF at the time) became a publicly traded company, meaning that pieces of the company could be purchased on the New York Stock Exchanged. That made everything different in a hurry, as now fans could see how things were going under the hood. This information is released in a series of quarterly reports, the latest of which was released on Thursday.

WWE released its fourth quarter financial report on Thursday with some mixed results. Overall, the company’s revenue went up due to large television deals but there were various issues holding the numbers down, including fewer live events, Mixed Match Challenge not returning and a decline in WWE Network subscriptions. The numbers were considered weaker than expected and as a result, WWE stock was down over 9% on the day, meaning a loss of $4.50.

Here are some specific numbers:

Fourth Quarter 2019 Highlights

* Revenues increased 18% to $322.8 million, which was the highest quarterly revenue in WWE history

* Operating income increased 87% to $99.8 million

* Adjusted OIBDA1 increased 67% to a quarterly record of $107.6 million

Full Year 2019 Highlights

* Revenues reached $960.4 million, the highest in the Company’s history

* Operating income was $116.5 million

* Adjusted OIBDA of $180.0 million represented record performance for the third consecutive year

* SmackDown successfully transitioned to FOX Broadcast, where viewership increased by 20% over the prior year fourth quarter,2 and NXT extended its reach, airing live on USA Network for the first time

* WWE completed content distribution agreements with BT Sport and ViacomCBS’ Channel 5 in the U.K., Fox Sports in Latin America, PP Sports in China and SuperSport in Africa, providing strong platforms for reaching WWE audiences in these regions

* Digital engagement continued to grow with video views up 10% to 34.5 billion and hours consumed up 7% to nearly 1.3 billion across digital and social media platform

* Return of capital to shareholders totaled a record $120.8 million in 2019

McMahon was heavily featured here. Check out some of his more famous work:

Opinion: This is one of those things that does not look good for the most part, but what matters most is where they go from here. If the stock bounces back or if they get some good news somewhere in the near future, things will look a lot brighter. What matters most though is fans don’t seem to like WWE as much and that is a major problem. The bigger problem though is figuring out what to do with it, which has been the case for a long time now.

What can WWE do to turn things around? How bad does this look for the company? Let us know in the comments below.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his- Amazon author page with 30 wrestling books. His latest book is KB’s Complete 2004 Monday Night Raw Reviews.

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