{"id":10430,"date":"2018-10-27T12:09:25","date_gmt":"2018-10-27T12:09:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/?p=10430"},"modified":"2018-10-27T12:09:25","modified_gmt":"2018-10-27T12:09:25","slug":"wwe-third-quarter-2018-highlights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/27\/wwe-third-quarter-2018-highlights\/","title":{"rendered":"WWE: Third Quarter 2018 Highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Ciaran James<span class=\"atwho-query\">@<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TheCiaranJames\">TheCiaranJames<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"bwlistitemmargb\">Revenues reached\u00a0$188.4 million\u00a0for the third quarter 2018 and a record\u00a0$657.7 million\u00a0for the nine months ended September 30, 2018, representing 12% growth over the prior year period<\/li>\n<li class=\"bwlistitemmargb\">Operating income was\u00a0$18.1 million. Adjusted OIBDA<sup>1<\/sup>\u00a0of\u00a0$35.8 million\u00a0exceeded the Company\u2019s guidance<\/li>\n<li class=\"bwlistitemmargb\">Through the first nine months of 2018, digital engagement increased with video views up 61% to 22.9 billion and hours consumed up 81% to 842 million across digital and social media platforms<sup>2<\/sup><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>2018 Business Outlook<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"bwlistitemmargb\">Full year 2018 Adjusted OIBDA is expected to range from\u00a0$160 million\u00a0to\u00a0$170 million, which would be consistent with the Company\u2019s previous guidance<sup>3<\/sup><\/li>\n<li class=\"bwlistitemmargb\">WWE has operated in the\u00a0Middle East\u00a0for nearly 20 years and has developed a sizable and dedicated fan base. Considering the heinous crime committed at the Saudi consulate in\u00a0Istanbul, the Company faced a very difficult decision as it relates to its event scheduled for November 2 in\u00a0Riyadh. Similar to other\u00a0U.S.-based companies who plan to continue operations in\u00a0Saudi Arabia, the Company has decided to uphold its contractual obligations to the General Sports Authority and stage the event. Full year 2018 guidance is predicated on the staging of the\u00a0Riyadh\u00a0event as scheduled<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cDuring the quarter, we remained keenly focused on deepening engagement with our global fan base by delivering compelling original content across media platforms,\u201d said Vince McMahon, WWE Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. \u201cWe believe that deepening engagement will enable us to take advantage of favorable global industry trends and drive long-term growth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>George Barrios, Co-President, added \u201cWe continue to effectively execute our strategy and achieved Adjusted OIBDA that surpassed our public guidance. Our performance maintains our path to achieve record revenue, record Adjusted OIBDA and record subscribers for the full year 2018.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"bwuline\"><b>Third-Quarter Consolidated Results<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Revenues<\/b>\u00a0of\u00a0$188.4 million\u00a0increased slightly from the third quarter 2017, as the increased monetization of content as reflected in the Media segment was nearly offset by lower ticket sales at the Company\u2019s live events and a\u00a0$2.6 million\u00a0unfavorable impact on licensing revenue due to the adoption of the new FASB standard for revenue recognition (ASC Topic 606).<\/p>\n<p><b>Operating Income<\/b>\u00a0decreased to\u00a0$18.1 million\u00a0from\u00a0$33.9 million\u00a0in the prior year quarter, reflecting the slight increase in revenue, which was more than offset by increased operating expenses, including increases in fixed costs, the timing of various business initiatives, and higher management incentive compensation based on anticipated strong full-year results as well as the rise in the Company\u2019s stock price. The Company\u2019s Operating income margin was 10% as compared to 18% in the prior year quarter.<\/p>\n<p>A full description of WWE&#8217;s Third Quarter 2018 results can be found at the following link\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/corporate.wwe.com\/investors\/news\/press-releases\/2018\/10-25-2018-133001732\">http:\/\/corporate.wwe.com\/investors\/news\/press-releases\/2018\/10-25-2018-133001732<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ciaran James@TheCiaranJames Revenues reached\u00a0$188.4 million\u00a0for the third quarter 2018 and a record\u00a0$657.7 million\u00a0for the nine months ended September 30, 2018, representing 12% growth over the prior year period Operating [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,185],"tags":[47,500,659],"class_list":["post-10430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-featured","category-wwe","tag-wwe","tag-wwe-financials","tag-wwe-third-quarter-results"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9jnWd-2Ie","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/36561eef964a99ba46bd614dd310f419-1474293354-800.jpg?fit=564%2C316&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10432,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10430\/revisions\/10432"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prowrestlingjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}