WWFE 4th Quarter Earnings (2001)
Today WWF CEO Linda McMahon and CFO August Liguori announced the 4Q earnings report ending April 30, 2001. Earnings for the quarter came in $131.1 million, an increase of 13% over the same period of last year. EBITDA increased 27% to $26.1 million while the same period last year did $20.5 million.
In live and televised events, revenues increased 14% to $99.3 million; Revenues from live shows increased by 29% to $25.9 million for an approximate attendance of 695,000, a 6% increase over the quarter of the previous year; Pay-per-view revenues for the quarter were $39.3, only slightly above the same period of last year; Revenues from TV rights tripled to $12.1 million; Advertising decreased to $2.4 million; Merchandise revenues were $31.8 million, 9% higher than the same period last year; Publishing revenues increased 42% to approximately $5.6 million; WWF New York had $4.4 million in revenue; Shopzone.com revenues increased 27%, but the New Media department (.com team) revenues dropped by 25% due to a low advertising market on the Internet; Licensing revenues decreased by 16% to $7.5 million.
Other important figures announced are: Around 2.5 million people attended live events in each of the last two fiscal years; Pay-per-view buys increased to 8.0 million buys from 6.9 million buys; Raw is War remained the top rated show on cable and posted average ratings of 5.5 for the year. WWF SmackDown! remains the number one rated show on UPN with average ratings of 4.6 for the year; Live and Televised revenues increased 27% to $335.6 million; Revenues from live events increased 19% driven by an increase in average ticket prices.
The average ticket price for the year was approximately $33.00; Pay-per-view revenues increased 21% for the year; Television rights fees increased 190% reflecting the benefits of the new agreements with Viacom and other international distributors; Total advertising revenues increased 16% due to a full year of revenues for WWF SmackDown! Merchandise revenues increased 6% to approximately $120.4 million; $4.0 million were recorded for book licensing revenues, 112% increase over the past year.
In regards to the XFL, McMahon announced that the total losses were $46.9 million, of which $10.7 million represented non-cash charges in connection with the sale of the Company's Class A common stock to NBC. On an after tax cash basis, the WWF incurred $36.2 million in losses.