Posted on 8/07/125 by Colin Vassallo
Speaking during the earnings conference call with investors,
TKO Chief Operating Officer Mark Shapiro said they still
have two packages they can sell: the NXT premium live events
and their video library.
He noted that the Peacock deal, which he clarified was $900
million, was for everything at the time, and now, they got
$1.6 billion just for 10 WWE premium live events.
“Our goal here is to increase profitability, increase
margins, get to industry grade – investment grade. And we’re
marching to that beat,” he said when asked why they left NXT
out of the PLE package.Bound For Glory tickets.
Chief Financial Officer Andrew Schleimer said that they
received a slightly higher rights fee from another partner
but they felt the ESPN brand, their reach, new platform, and
makeup of their audience was just as important as the fee.
They also mentioned of not putting all their eggs in one
basket, splitting the rights to different broadcast outlets.
“We’ve retained for further monetization are all of the NXT
PLEs roughly 6 per year, 250 hours of original programming
that historically had been in WWE’s cost and expense that we
no longer have an obligation to produce contractually, 5
documentaries over the term, 1 per year at WWE’s cost and
expense, which we no longer have the obligation to produce
contractually as well as the content archive,” Schleimer
said. “So meaningful opportunity for additional monetization
on top of the $325 million.”