The State of Streaming; What Next for WWE?

Episode Summary

On this episode, we take a look at the streaming services industry with Ian Greenblatt, managing director for technology, media and telecommunications intelligence at J.D. Power, and we consider the challenges that face WWE (NYSE:WWE) with Brandon Thurston, editor of Wrestlenomics.

Resources:

Benzinga Pro  

Benzinga.com

Phil's Articles on Benzinga.com

Benzinga Podcasts

Guests:

Ian Greenblatt, Managing Director at J.D. Power

Brandon Thurston, Editor of Wrestlenomics

Host:

Phil Hall

Subscribe to all Benzinga Podcasts at https://www.benzinga.com/podcasts

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Unedited transcript:

Um,

Hello? Hello. Hello. It is. I feel whole for yet. Another episode of Benzinga show business today, we're going to be taking a look at some home entertainment later in our show. We're going to be joined by Brandon thirst and he is the editor of wrestle Nomics. And he's going to be discussing all things WWE.

Just between you and me, you can admit that you watch WWE wrestling on TV, whether it's broadcast or streaming. I watch it every night. I'm not ashamed of that. But first up on today's program, we're going to be talking about streaming services in general. Our guest is somebody who knows a great deal on the subject.

He's Ian Greenblatt and he's managing director for technology media and telecommunications intelligence. J D power in Greenblatt. Thank you so much for being a guest on today's episode of Benzinga show business. You recently published an article called despite the return to normal people are spending more time and money on streaming services now than during the height of the pandemic.

And I found that rather curious, because here we are, uh, we're actually recording this episode at the end of August, going into September, whether it's still nice, uh, Even with the Delta variant, people are still out and about. And yet it seems from your article that more people are home watching Disney plus and Netflix and Hulu and whatever is out there.

Then they were during the height of the pandemic. How do you, how do you explain that? Well, first thank you for having. So there's a couple parts of that, right? Well, when I say it, when you said, uh, spending more time, well, it's more time, more money on streaming services now than at the pandemic site. So let's take them one by one.

So. Uh, consumers are spending more on streaming compared to six months ago. And compared to April 20, when we asked you about for the first time. So we did three, just for the sake of the viewers. We did the three pulse surveys when an April 21, December of 21 in June, it's 21 around this topic. Right? So we're charting to trend across those two time points.

When we asked them, how much time did you spend streaming compared to six months ago, a 79% of respondents, so that they're spending the same, but more time stream than they did six months ago. So that about the same categories, 35% of that 79% number. But if you're talking about, about the same or more, I mean, that's an awful lot.

And if we're talking about spending, right. Um, how much are you, how much, how much per month are you paying for all of your streaming services combined? This has gone up straight line, but since our first outing at this in April from 38 to 47 out of $55 per month on streaming. So when we take them all together, uh, we feel fairly confident in saying, yeah, they're spending more time and more money.

One of the things I found fascinating in your report was the success of the HBO max presentation of the friends reunion. I mean, I like to joke with people that friends don't watch live friends, watch friends, but in this case, a lot of people watching friends. And, uh, what, why is that? I mean, this is a show that had been rerun to death for decades.

What brought people back to watching. So, I, I, there's a very special place in my heart for this show for a couple of different reasons. Uh, my father was in television syndication. If anybody remembers what that was, it's essentially, uh, selling reruns and friends was his show. He sold it. So I I've known this is the show has been a part of the family.

Moreover, I was a war, uh, lawyer at Warner brothers. Uh, so I remember negotiating with the cast. Um, I, like I said, I have a spare, very special place in my heart for this. Why do others though? We'll keep in mind. This is a largely one sec. That is about friends, spending time with each other. And if we've done anything, we're close, close friends, spending time with each other.

And if we've all done anything during this pandemic, it spent an awful lot of time with those closest to us. So I think maybe that might be part of it, but it's, it's long been a very successful Mr. Daljit satisfying show. Um, when you're looking for that comfort. That's the thing I can do on that one. But I, you know, like I said, very special place.

I know I'm not a particularly big friend of fan, so I hope I'm not offending you by saying that friends don't let friends watch friends, but that's a, that's another issue, but what are the shows that people are watching? And th there seems to be an endless amount of programming choices on streaming, or are they watching family, friends?

Shows are they watching standalone movies? Are they watching animation or are they watching foreign language films, foreign language series. What's what are the hit shows? So th those are, those are great questions and it also, obviously it all depends on which audience are you talking about? You're talking about, uh, you know, largely grownups, um, you'll see that, um, the bulk of them are following sh uh, content thereafter into various silos.

That they're trying out. So, you know, the star wars crowd or the Marvel crowd is, is trying out their hand and Disney plus many of them are staying. Uh, if you're looking at Netflix is amazing amount of, um, of content, they simply have a ton and continue to invest a ton in first run, uh, original content you're looking at shows like, uh, it was very popular in our last, um, in our last installment here, uh, Handmaid's tale, friends, as you point out Grey's anatomy.

And then there are the Bingi sort of things like game of Thrones, you know, if you missed it the first time around you come back and spend the time with it. I personally have several friends who called me in various states of panic. Wait, what's going to happen next around game of Thrones. Um, and then I left that I, one of the things I wanted to mention is the, is the huge boom in, uh, in teen focused content.

Right, which I'll, I'll go ahead and waiter and say that the number of meds streaming of teen content is about to see a big dip because school's back in session and that's, who's watching. And that's why they're watching this because they weren't out running around with their friends. They were at home.

I entertain themselves being a safer at home. Well, it's certainly no shortage of streaming services to choose from, but. Are we going to get to a point where there is going to be too much quantity and there's going to be some sort of shakeout either with consolidation or companies going out of business.

I mean, the answer has to be, yes, there's only so many hours in the day. There's only so many sets of eyeballs on the planet and there's only so much first content we can make. Um, That's it. I believe that this is a game of, of aggregators and it always has been, if you look at traditional MVPD, um, you know, traditional cable tolerant, satellite delivered cable or satellite operators themselves, it's always been the role of the aggregator to present surface recommend, uh, deliver curated content and with traditional VPDs and satellite providers, the curation is.

There's a lot because there has to be something for everybody where I've, I believe that as these, um, silos tend to, you know, the silos condense, um, you'll see, 6, 7, 8, uh, do do continue to do well hard to beat Netflix, given the amount of headstart and ongoing cashflow they have. But Amazon prime video is doing fantastic.

Who is doing very well Disney plus doing exceedingly well, HBO max to. Um, and so, you know, as we see paramount plus gain steam, as we've seen, as we see whatever the new instance of at and T TV, which will be DirecTV now, um, we're directing stream, um, you know, w we'll see how that shakes out and I believe it will shake out well, the aggregators always do well.

Um, and that's the, if you can't beat them, join them here. It's a bit demanding. Bring them into the fold. Make sure you all of the various streamers are available across a common search or federated search platform. The aggregators are when, uh, but there will, I think be fewer of them. All of the control. A friend of mine showed me a poster for a film, which is exclusive to Hulu called vacation friends with John Cena.

Now I've not seen the production. Uh, so perhaps it's not fair for me to pass judgment on adjusting the poster, but the poster looked like. What might've been the cover of a director video title that you would have found in a big box store. It wasn't, uh, it wasn't very, uh, appealing sunlight that didn't want to take a look at the film based on that.

Uh, but I guess that's a long way of getting to the point is what is being done to ensure that there is quality control and that streaming doesn't turn into a digital version of straight to this. That's it that's a fair point. I mean, it's data, ultimately it's data, uh, folks like red box, right? New. What would rent on a Friday night?

Was it the $200 million, um, action extravaganza on in tournaments? Just to make it $200 million action extravaganza, summer blockbuster. No, it was Paul Blart mall cop made for I think, $12 million, $36 million.

It took to get Kevin James, John was on a scooter. Um, and so because they know what runs, because Netflix keeps their own data versus don't share. But because Netflix knows an awful lot about you, what you like when you like to watch it, what you like to watch, it's highly likely, right? Unless they're doing something really wrong, which they're not.

It's highly likely that the bigger silos that we just talked about will have excellent data on, and I'm more than educated guests on. What's going to do just fine. And that will take care of quality control. One of the stories I've been covering for Benzinga this summer has been the whole brouhaha over Scarlett, Johansson and Disney, uh, regarding the release of black widow coming out, both theatrically and in streaming.

Uh, Mr. Hanson of course, is suing the studio claiming that her contract was for a theatrical only release and her salary had been pegged to that and that the, the streaming release diluted her earnings. And she's. Of course in the film industry for that going forward. Do you see the studios continuing to put out films, both theatrically and on streaming?

Or do you think they're going to go back to where it used to be? There'd be a 45 day window between the theatrical release and the streaming. Well now that's, that's the multi-billion dollar question right there. I have to tell you though. I think now that the public has a taste of day and day, uh, releases.

So same day with the sun streaming that it is in the theaters. Now the public has a taste for it. Now that the public is willing to pay a premium for the privilege. Um, and as Delta and whatever, the follow-on continues to. To be out there. I think there will always be from here on out, uh, at least a willing audience to watch a bandaid at home.

Um, now this remains to be seen what the appetite is of the studios and of the circuit owners and circuit as theater owners, um, and where they're all going to shake out, right. AMC, rattles, the sword, every time there's, there's any sort of threat and, and promises to never do business with a particular studio again and wait two months.

And that gets walked back. Um, Disney has very clever strategy and planning folk who, who can model very effectively what the best possible outcome is, um, to monetize a piece of content. And so ultimately I do believe that we'll continue to see Diane selective day in, day out releases, not for example where Warner immediately now want to discovery had said, we're going to do the whole.

The whole slate is going a day day, the whole slate for that here, that caused a problem, right. That caused the circuit honors to, to calculate ahead of time. Uh, what they do is where here, I believe that, you know, Disney is going to select on title by title basis. I think that'll likely be the model going forward for all of the matrix.

What about a special events? Uh, either sports or award shows. I've actually done a couple of news pieces for Benzinga about the Tony awards for the most of the broadcast is going over to paramount plus, and the academy of country music awards is going over to Amazon. I know Amazon is doing a lot of.

Effort to bring more sporting events to its streaming service. Uh, is this going to be the trend where maybe someday something like the Indy 500 or the world series will just be exclusive to streaming as opposed to being on broadcast? Hello. Potentially, um, you know, listen, I've long believed or I've gone back to my first startup that the future of television was on demand.

Right? So the, the concept of linear networks, um, even the ones that had. I am free ad supported television these days. Um, the concept of linear television is, is a challenge. One of that. So the notion of having and moving these major events that are largely audience driven, uh, to siloed players. There's, there's, there's a lot of reasons why that might just happen again.

The market's going to bear this one out wherever the largest audience is for that particular piece of content is where it's going to go. What is it about the streaming sector that surprises you the most?

Why it took so long? Yes. I've, I've been doing this a long time. And like I said, I did a television on demand startup company. We built the, the equipment that made it happen, right. Um, back in 99, so a million years ago. And it seemed so obvious then it seemed so clear that streaming video streaming audio being able to begin a.

A stream of content from wherever on whatever device and whatever access network you wanted at whatever time you wanted in whatever location Walnut. It just seemed obvious that it took this long and you know, the global pandemic to boot to get there. That's my surprise. Well, Ian Greenblatt we're at the end of this segment of Benzinga show business.

But if our listeners wanted to continue the conversation with you, how could they get in touch with you? Come see [email protected] backslash business, or feel free to, uh, to reach out, um, via our, uh, portal, right? There's a, there's a contact us on that way. Excellent in green, black. Thank you so much for being a guest or this segment up in Zynga show business.

It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me and focused on go away. We're going to give you a very quick message from the good people at Benzinga pro. And then we're going to be back with Brandon turns to talking about all things WWE. Get access to actionable news and market research with all the information you need to invest smarter and profit faster.

Start your free trial [email protected]. And we are back in the second half of this episode of Benzinga show business. And today we're going to be going into the squared circle. Good folks at WW II and their various shenanigans what's going on with that company. Our guests is somebody who knows more than a little about.

WWE and professional wrestling in general. He's Brandon Thurston. He is the founder and editor of the website, wrestle nomics.com and Brandon. Thanks so much for joining us on today's program. Thank you very much for having me. I, I am actually not the founder, but I am the one, one, the one man. Almost one man show.

I do have a couple of people helping out, but yet it's, it's all my work over wrestling monarchs now, uh, take, take, create as much credit as you wanted. It doesn't matter. We're not doing any fact checking here on the show. So it's a whole. So Brandon I've been writing about WWE for Benzinga recently, and a couple of things have come up about, uh, rumors that WWE is a up for sale or considering sale.

And there was even an interview with Nick Khan, the president of the company who said they would be open to considering, uh, any conversation. Do you see the possibility of the company being sold anytime in the near future? Not well, Vincent man is alive. Uh, whenever they've been asked a question along the lines of whether they would consider, uh, being acquired by a bigger company, uh, they have always used the line we're open for business.

And, uh, because summer slam has just happened this past weekend. Uh, Nick Khan was doing some media around. I think he was on Peter Kafka's show and, uh, that came up and he said, oh, we're yeah, we're open for business. And I think he's tried to clarify in subsequent interviews that what he just meant was that if anybody comes to them with any sort of dealer wants to talk, we take everybody seriously.

Um, but I think Adobe will remain controlled by Vincent man. As long as this man, his wife. You know, after that point, I could see WB being, uh, acquired by NBC universal seems like the most likely candidate right now, but I think, uh, Vince wants to control the company as, as, as long as he can and, uh, continue to, uh, be the head of creative and continue to run the biggest wrestling company.

Yeah, we just had to clarify for our listeners that, um, you just mentioned that this is right after summer slam. We're obviously recording this episode a few weeks before you're hearing it in case you want. You're looking at the calendar saying, wait a minute, summertime was a few weeks ago. We know that, but, uh, We're uh, we're coming to you from the past.

Uh, but I have to say that I agree with you on, uh, Vince McMahon. I mean, this is a gentleman who's created two failed professional football leagues and kept going. He doesn't strike me as the type to throw in the towel on. No, I think, I think Vince is kind of a control freak, and he wants to, he has class B shares.

So he has about 80% of the voting power while he controls about one third of the shares. Um, but yeah, I think he wants to continue to be able to control the company and B be the one person who. Who has the final say, he's the chairman, he's the CEO, he's the head of creative. Um, there's been a lot of cost cutting in WWII lately.

There's been a lot of talent, uh, that that's been cut lately. And that's really alarmed, especially wrestling fans who can't understand why WB is letting go of talent, like Braun, Stroman, and Bray, Wyatt lately, uh, who are, who are some of the bigger names that WWE has had over the last few years. Um, but I think a lot of it has to do.

Uh, the new executives NECON, who's the new president and chief revenue officer, Christina Salen. Who's the new chief financial officer they've only been around. They just passed the one year mark. Uh, they came in in August, 2020, and I think it's just a case of them looking at what they've inherited from the previous executive.

Figuring out how they can make the company more profitable in one way to make the company more profitable is to cut costs and maybe to cut some talent that they don't feel that they really need. Ws had a lot of talent too. Uh, it's grown, it's doubled its roster really since 2015 from about 150 to 300 wrestlers.

So I can see an argument for why maybe they don't need as many wrestlers as they do. Cause I think they've been trying to keep, to keep talented wrestlers away from new potential competitors. The fact that WWE is still going on despite the pandemic. And obviously the, the idea that wrestling is not exactly a social distancing activity.

How were they able to get away with this? I know that a governor DeSantis in Florida, judge them as being an essential business, which allowed them to keep broadcasting, even though they didn't have people in their audience for over a year. Do you have any insight on how the governor came about to granting this a rather astonishing deal for the company?

I don't know. It's, it's something that Rhonda Santos did very early on in the pan. I was to declare it a. And essential service WrestleMania in 2020 was supposed to happen in Tampa. So that was an April, 2020. So of course the pandemic started to affect live events in March, 2020. Um, it seemed like maybe that was a factor to maintain a good relationship between the state and WVU so that they would continue to want to have a huge they're huge annual event WrestleMania every year.

Drives a lot of business to local economy. I'm sure I know. There's speculation that I'm with Linda McMahon, who is Vince McMahon's wife. And she's been very involved with the Trump administration was it was at the time she's a small business administrator for about the first half of a of Trump's administration.

That maybe there was some connection there, but I'm kind of skeptical that, that, that. That much of a conspiracy going on there, but, uh, no, they were able to, they never, they're very proud of saying that they never missed a week of TV and they never did. They did. They went to their performance center. They have a training center in Orlando, Florida, and they ran TV out of there for, uh, from the middle of March, 2020 until, uh, August, 2020.

Um, and save a lot of money doing that as opposed to touring around the country and, uh, Loading and unloading, uh, every night it saved them a lot of money. So, so w is actually more profitable. During the pandemic, or at least in the early part of the pan, that'd be four. They brought out the Thunderdome, which is all the video screens that people may have seen.

Uh, they saved a lot of money by running in the performance center, but they felt like it was affecting their ratings. And, uh, they introduced the Thunderdome, which, which was, uh, they took that to various locations of still around Florida. They stayed in Florida the entire time. They went through a diff uh, a few different, uh, venues, but, uh, they.

The Thunderdome did seem to help their ratings. But yeah, they, uh, they produced new TV every week for their TV partners, NBC universal and Fox and others around the world. And, uh, they, they continue to get their TV rights fees, which are about, um, about, about half, maybe a slight majority of the revenue with.

What are the things they've written about with WWE over the past year was the deal with NBC universal, with the peacock streaming service, uh, bringing the, the programming to, uh, to peacock. Do you see that as a good business deal for the company? Yeah. So it's a sports business journal reporter that it's a $1 billion deal over five years.

If you mean, it means that we average out to $200 million a year. WB, uh, introduced their own self operated WWE network. And now they were contracting out through, uh, MLB am, but, uh, they, they introduced the WWE network in February, 2014. So they're really one of the early players, uh, in streaming. Uh, WWII has been, uh, on pay-per-view they run monthly events on paper.

You have. As long as I've been alive. And, uh, I think Vince felt that like Vince was kind of an easy sell to the idea of a streaming service because the pay-per-view provider takes usually about 55% of, of the pay-per-view revenue that the content provider only gets 45% is a standard cut. And, uh, but through the network they could just go direct to consumer and, and take all of it.

So the network was an exciting idea and it was a great deal for the consumer who, uh, you know, the wrestling fan who was paying $60 for a pay-per-view every month, they could subscribe to the streaming service for $10 a month, get the pay-per-views that are part of it. And in the library and everything else that they put on the WWE network, uh, they projected originally three to 4 million subscribers for the WWE network, uh, when it was introduced, they got about halfway there.

Um, The peaks around 2 million subscribers for, I think the 2018 WrestleMania. So they fell well short of what their publicly stated goal was. They were generating about $185 million in revenue on the network, which they rolled out all, all over the world. Um, so subscribers had stopped growing by 2019 and, uh, I don't know how else they were going to grow subscribers other than to.

You know, grow the popularity of their brand, which at least from the years of 2016 to 2019 and going into COVID, uh, seems pretty stagnant. So you go from $185 million a year or something like that, where there's not. Any real subscriber growth happening to, to generating $20 million a year. And maybe there's some opportunities for them to, uh, to share ad revenue with peacock as well as they, you know, it's, it's one thing to have a one and a half or 2 million subscribers, but to be on peacock's platform that has higher reach, that's a.

That's one of the benefits for them. And then they like to, to, uh, celebrate how they're they're on this big reach platform and their pay-per-views. Now, since they've been on peacocks since March are now more highly viewed than they were before the people coming back to the live shows, when they resumed presentations in Texas in July, and they just had summer slam in August in Las Vegas.

Yeah, they've uh, they've been doing well with, with ticket sales better than they were pre COVID. I think there's, there's a bit of pent up demand. Um, the first, the first show, I think the first show was in Houston for SmackDown on July 16th, that sold out about four 14,000 fans. Las Vegas is the first stadium scale of event.

They've done a 45,000 paid. I know they have, they announced a bigger number, but 45,000 paid is wouldn't it con said to variety and to BT sport. And we've got. Uh, uh, a person who runs, uh, a little outlet called Russell ticks. Who's actually counting the dots on Ticketmaster to, to find out exactly how many, how many tickets are being distributed.

So about 45,000 paid, um, they're doing better than they were before. Uh, how long it sustained. Sustained though. I don't know. What's like, what's the state of W's popularity. They're clearly benefiting from the return of live fans and TV ratings are holding up better. And in a lot, in some comparisons they're doing better than they were last year, which is, uh, is a sort of a rare thing these days.

And TV seems to be doing better than you were last year. But clearly wrestling is not the same without thousands of fans there. To me, that's that's the whole game and the whole. Th th that's the large part of the, of the excitement is to see, to what extent the show, the wrestlers, the performers are going to be able to get the intended reactions out of people.

Or if the fans just aren't going to react, or if they're going to give some unintended reaction, I think that's in a lot of times, that's the most interesting thing that's happening. Despite, you know, you can do that. You can do a show in front of real fans and everybody's talented and athletic, but it's not the same unless there's people.

What is the secret to WWE is longevity. I think I'm somewhat older than you. I remember them back in the eighties when they were on NBC and when they used to alternate with Saturday night live, I think they also got better ratings than SNL did during that period. That's right. But I remember. Those days being more of a vaudeville type of a presentation than it is today are people of my generation watching today's WWE, or is this something which is, uh, strictly for the kids and us older folks, looking at those young whippersnappers, wondering what are you watching and why do you find that entertaining?

Tell you the truth. Sometimes watch Toby. And I wonder who's who this is for who, who finds this entertaining sometimes. Um, I mean, as far as do, do older people watch WWII, I mean, on linear TV, they certainly do. I see all the demographics across their, their TV ratings and P 50 plus is majority of their audience by just by slim margin.

I think. I think younger people are consuming it as well through other means through, through YouTube or through other clips or, or following it on social media. Um, but that's probably the case with a lot of things, a lot of things, things on TV or that people used to consume more traditionally through TV.

Um, Yeah. If you w has a new competitor in the wrestling space since 2019, AWN their viewership tends to be younger. Um, if I just in fact look at, at the most recent median age, um, So raw this past Monday, which did a really good rating falling summer slam their median age was 52. This is linear TV, but, but I think when you compare it, it it's meaningful compared to say the last ADA dynamite was 49 and be, uh, the cm punk return for ADW was 43 and median age.

So it's, it's, it's um, consistently a younger audience and WBS. Uh, a bit of an older audience on linear TV anyway, but I do think a I've seen some stats from, I think it's tubular labs showing how the WWII is one of the most popular content creators on YouTube and on face. Wait, where does WWE go from here are, I know they brought John Cena back for a couple of appearances and their stuff I've seen online.

They're trying to learn the rock to come back as well. Are they going to get these older performance to come back or are they going to start to groom the next generation of John Sanders and rocks and whole Cogans and whoever came before them? They're always trying, I think. Is relying a lot on older stars and is very challenged to create new stars.

The biggest booms in wrestling history in terms of business have always centered around, uh, the emergence of some new star, whether that was Hulk Hogan in the eighties, whether that was the rock and stone cold, Steve Austin. And I think bill Goldberg, even NWW in the late nineties, um, to an extent, the emergence of Johnson in the mid two thousands, uh, and, and which did coincide with an increase in business to next time.

The, the increase in, in consumer metrics have always centered around, or I've always coincide with, with the emergence of a new star. Uh, WB is making more money than ever now, just because of the nature of, of media rights fees, and then the demand for live content. But, uh, they would like to make new stars.

I've Roman reigns has become a big star for them. He's by far they're they're. Recognizable full-time wrestler. Um, but increasingly over the last several years, so he has become more about the visiting, uh, usually older star, whether it's bill Goldberg, gro John. Now, John Siena, who's very busy with Hollywood or occasionally, rarely the rock.

Um, but, uh, your w has, uh, a performance center where they train people. They have a developmental brand called NXT. Great deal of turmoil seems to be. Putting in the next team to change the philosophy of, well, what kind of talent they should be cultivating outta the next T to get them ready for the main roster.

Um, the, the Vinci man philosophy of having, um, you know, athletes who are, who are bigger, taller, um, seems to have checked in on, on an X T. Uh, his son-in-law triple H his philosophy of, uh, bringing in more of these independent wrestlers who have been in wrestling organizations outside of WB. I think Vince has been unhappy with some of the talent that he's, that has graduated from NXT to, to WB.

And, uh, so that seems to be, uh, about to reset its philosophy, but they have to make new stars and, uh, the nature of WWII television, um, the, uh, The way that it's, I think over scripted, uh, the way that I think a lot of talent is miscast and misunderstood, uh, undermines their ability to create stars, but their, their name ID and their brand is, uh, it towers above every other player in the wrestling industry.

Still. Uh, last question I have for you, let's just say that you won the Powerball and you have money to burn. Uh, would you take some of that money to burn and invest in WW? I've never invested in WB because I do this and I don't want this to be conflicted. Um, w share price last I checked is somewhere around 50, or maybe just under $50 per share.

So they've got a market cap of somewhere around, or just under $4 billion. The value of their stock is largely going to be determined by whether or not people think or the, whether they're going through. An increase in their TV rights fees. Um, their current deal give us is by far their biggest media rights market.

Uh, they're currently getting $205 million from Fox per year, $265 million, uh, from NBC universal. Uh, w just got a 3.6 X increase over their previous round. They they've been doing this round. This term is five years long. It'll expire, fall of 2024. So negotiations will probably start happening next year.

And if history is any lesson, they'll finish a deal about a year and a half in advance of the expiration. So that means somewhere around the middle of 2023, um, WB program. Uh, it's still highly ranked. I think there'll be, there's a lot of consumer metrics to show that the popularity of WWII has declined from 2016 to 2020.

Uh, but WB programming on linear TV is still very popular. Ross still ranks. Number one on cable in 1849. Many weeks. SmackDown is on Friday night, usually fighting it out with shark tank for the lead in PA team to 49. Um, so it's still ranks highly and the best I can tell you. The, the content that's going to drive really strong media values is going to be the content that ranks the best, the ranks most highly, especially among younger viewers.

Uh, even though, yeah, W's got some, some pretty older views, some, some older viewers and an older median age, they still do really well on 18 to 49. And they rank highly. And I think as long as they'll be continues to rank highly, I would err on the side of things. They'll get a moderate increase, their position to get a moderate increase in 2023 something, I feel the Nikon has been hyping on earnings calls lately is that, you know, maybe they can get a digital player.

Maybe they get one of the fangs interested in bidding for the rights. Um, I'm not sure that, that it, the names that have been mentioned are apple and Amazon. Amazon is obviously interested in live sports rights. Um, I don't know about apple, but there's. I don't know how much sense it makes for WB to put its it's raw or SmackDown content on a, on a streaming player, maybe in a couple years, it'll it'll make sense.

But I think one thing that's really valuable for Ron SmackDown is to be on a really high reach platform. Fox is ideal because it's. Probably over a hundred million homes, a USA network is good because it's an over 80 million homes. Um, but if you go on Amazon prime, I'm not sure how many people are using Amazon prime that often and would discover it that way, which, which is important to feed all of their downstream businesses like, like tickets and merchandise, um, and consumer products.

So. I don't know if it makes a ton of sense, at least at this point for them to go on a streaming player. And I, they would love to have a string player bid for them, and that might scare a Fox or NBC universal or some other linear broadcaster to bid strongly for their rights. So. I mean, the con is, uh, is the one who helped them make the deal that they have.

Now they've brought him in as an executive and he seems exceptionally, uh, experienced and talented at making good, good business deals. So w seems to be in a good position, uh, as far as that goes. And again, I would, I would err, on the side of the, it may they'll get a moderate increase, uh, in their TV rights fees in the next.

Well, Brenda, Thurswell we're at the end of today's episode, but if our listeners wanted to continue the conversation with you, how can they find you? I have a weekly podcast that you can find in your podcast, app, wrestle, Nomics, radio, just search for Russell Nomics. Uh, uh, you can go to my website, Russell nomics.com, or you can see a lot of my written work and a lot of business, uh, metrics on, uh, the businesses, professional wrestling.

Uh, I'm on Twitter at Russell omics and at Brandon Thurston. Brenda Thirston. Thank you so much for being guests on this episode of fencing, a show business. Thanks. Thanks so much for having me, Phil and folks. We'll see you again next week until then you have yourself most wonderful of experiences. Take care. .