WWE 2016 Business Partner Summit Recap

WATCH THE WHOLE VIDEO HERE: http://corporate.wwe.com/2016-business-overview

The New Day opens the conference with a “Ahhh… Business Partner Summit - don’t you dare feel sour!”.



A few audience members cooperate.
New Day is dancing on the Stage.




Xavier Woods: “Ladies & Gentlemen, today is your lucky day. We are presenting you the investment opportunity of a lifetime.” They pitch Booty-O’s.
Kofi cuts off Xavier’s speech. “This isn’t Shark Tank. That’s not what we’re here for.”
Start this party off with a bang… Stagehand hands Xavier a Trombone.






Big E cuts off Xavier and claims “something extra special is planned”.




We’ve get the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
New Day Dances out of the room. Kofi and Xavier high-five several people.




(3:45) – Welcome your host, Chief Brand Officer, Stephanie McMahon.




“How unusual – I normally get booed.” – Stephanie

“Ever since I was a little girl, fans have come up to my father and asked for autographs or to take a picture. Whether we were at the movies, or out to dinner as a family, I just thought that was normal. But the one thing that always stuck out to me was what they’d say before they’d ask for an autograph. They’d always say Thank You.”




Steph tells the story of an adult who came up to her and said, “Thank you for all your entertainment throughout the years. I’ve watched WWE since I was a kid, and now I watch with my kids.”
“Maintaining relevancy, and generating a connection with our audience that has lasted for generations. And will be there for generations to come. How do we do it? The answer is very simple - Storytelling.”
“Everything in WWE is storytelling. Stories are relatable. If I can relate to a character, I am invested in their emotional journey. I become passionately engaged in their tragedy or triumph. Our superstars overcome adversary to become heroes in the eyes of our audience.”
“Recognizing heroes is an important part of WWE story that we developed a marketing campaign in partnership with NBC Universal called, ‘For the Hero in All of Us’.”




“For the Hero in all of us – continue to be cornerstone of WWE in 2016.”
“The real heroes are not the only ones you see in the ring, but the everyday heroes you see in the audience.”
“Our mission is to put smiles on people’s faces the world over.”
“Our partners help us with that mission by helping us create unique experiences that create memories that will last a lifetime.”
“This morning we’re here to recognize the business partner of the year – the partner who was able to generate the highest rate of engagement of our fans across our multiple lines of business. Because when our partners generate opportunities that reward our audience’s passion, our partners – all of you – become the heroes.”

Let’s take a look at our first nominee – NBCUniversal





“WWE is proud of our relationship with NBCUniversal. Raw has consistently been a ratings juggernaut.”
They talk about SmackDown moving to USA in 2016 and how WWE partnered with NBCUniversal for “The Hero in all of Us” campaign across all of NBCU’s channels and digital platforms:




They claim that this campaign reached 1 in 3 US Adults on TV alone.





They talk about the new brands added for advertising on WWE for NBCU:




(9:10) Michelle Wilson & George Barrios come out.




“We have an amazing story to tell you about how we’ve broken records in great part thanks to all of you.”
“2015 was a phenomenal year for WWE.”


Talks about record revenue (up 22%) and international revenue at $170 million.
How do we do this?
1. Willingness take calculated risks
2. Engage and Grow Fan Base
3. Partner with Blue-Chip Companies

1. Calculated Risks and Challenging Legacy Business Models
“A lot of people, a lot of experts, said that we were insane to walk away from our pay-per-view business. They said we were taking unnecessary risks. “
Michelle quotes from the NYT’s David Carr who wrote:
“For any legacy business under threat of disruption, the challenge is to get from one room — the one with the tried and true profitable approach — to another, where consumers are headed and innovators are setting up shop. To get there, you have to enter a long, dark hallway, a scary place.”
Barrios chimes in, ”Very scary!”



“We actually entered that long dark hallway two years ago and we’ve come out the other side.”
“WWE Network doubled the revenue of our legacy business. It’s now our second largest and single fastest growing business.”




“How successful has WWE Network been? Parks Associates named us the 5th largest direct-to-consumer video service along Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and MLB.TV.”




“It pretty amazing company for us to keep.”
Barrios goes through hours of content (5,000) hours of new 2015 content (350), hours of content consumed by subscriber (256 million hours of content; 188 hours/subscriber).



“We are the first global direct-to-consumer network. We only have China left and we hope to announce that soon.”

“WWE Network represents our single greatest avenue to keep deriving transformative growth. Our success around the world means we’re driving continuous consumer engagement with our brand, and by extension, all your products and services, and our 175 global consumer licensees. More engagement, more consumer opportunities.”

“The better we do, the better we all do.”

2. Unrelenting focus on engaging and growing our Fan Base.

Five years ago, we made a commitment to own the digital and social landscape. We saw it as a landgrab.

They play a video about “Steve” who is highly engaged with the WWE.

















“If you know Steve, you know to leave him along when the shows are on.
He’ll only watch them live!”


“He knows the storylines continue on social. He doesn’t want to miss a beat.”














“They know the WWE Universe never stops and they don’t want to miss a single moment.”


“A year ago we had 450 million social media followers around the world – today that number is more than 625 million.”
“On YouTube, our views have grown from 3.5 billion to a monumental 8 billion annually.”




Michelle: “If you stop and think about that, eight billion annually is equivalent to every single person on the planet watching a WWE video."

Michelle: "Those views have made WWE the #1 sports channel on all of YouTube.”

George: “Being such a social brand help us take NXT from a system to develop our next WWE superstars to a global brand on to itself. Incredibly, NXT is one of our most watched programs on WWE Network. It trends globally on Twitter and in 2015 we toured NXT outside the US for the first time.”

George: “Our chairman always said, ‘NXT guarantees our collective future success.’ You’ll hear a lot more about NXT from Paul Levesque later. Let’s not forget, the keystone of WWE and the reason we’re all here in Dallas – WrestleMania.”




Forbes ranked WrestleMania as one of the Top 5 most valuable Sports brand in the entire world alongside Olympics, FIFA World Cup and Super Bowl.

3. We would be remiss not to recognize our best in class partnerships with all of you. The third key to our success.





"Delivering compelling, long-form content continues to be the foundation of our success for global fan engagement. TV Partners remain an integral part of our ecosystem around the world, we are extremely proud of our relationships with Sky TV (UK), Ten Sports (India), Fox (Latin America) and Rogers (Canada) to name a few. They provide us with that broad platform to reach all of our fans. "

"Domestically we’re very proud of our partnership with NBC Universal. This past January SmackDown joined Monday Night Raw on USA Network. Combined they average more viewers than top five cable networks in Prime Time.”




We’ve also expanded our audience with E! Network to produce Total Divas which has been very successful and is now in its fifth season.



“An incredible two-thirds of Total Divas viewers are totally new to the WWE brand.”
Working with our friends at NBC Universal, important to both of us, we added 37 new advertisers to WWE programming.



One of them, Coca Cola, sponsored WWE week on USA and the Tribute to the Troops special.



We’re excited about our new marketing relationship with ESPN.




WWE talent has been featured weekly on Sportscenter driving viewership and engagement across all of ESPN’s platforms.

What’s most important are our partnerships that shine a light on critical social issues.











“Whether it’s anti-bullying efforts, pediatric cancer awareness, inclusion of those with disabilities or supporting the men and women in our military, we are particularly proud to use our brand’s strengths and outreach initiatives to truly make a difference.”

Barrios: “So 2015 was great. The question is where do we go from here? For 2016 we’ve got three areas that we’re really laser-focused on.”
1. Deploying new technology across the entire WWE enterprise
2. Continuing to invest in emerging markets
3. Creating Great Content

First, let’s talk about using technology and Data:
1. Using Technology and Data



“Today’s almost one-third of our revenue come from our digital platforms. A few years ago, that was 6%. We’re investing heavily in technology to capture and mine that data to optimally drive more engagement for our consumers.”

“How about virtually reality, 360 video? It’s on every brand’s to-do list. We’ve already thrown ourselves into that ring. Our fans can now get a ring-side experience through our partnership with Samsung.”





2. Emerging Markets
“We’re adding partnerships across the global including in China, in India and the Middle East. You’re going to hear a lot more about this from Gerrit Meier later.”

3. New Content
On WWE Network, from reality to comedy, to in-ring programming, we plan to deliver more hours than ever before. Let’s take a look. (WWE Network promo video plays.)

“We also continue to work with external partners on new content – action movies with our partners at Lions Gate to more family-friendly fare with our partners at Warner Bros and new programming E! that promises to deliver even more diva-drama than ever before.”

That’s how we’re going to expand on last year’s success. We’re excited to help all of you leverage WWE’s rapidly expanding global platform to benefit you and your consumers.

(24:15) Stephanie returns


Stephanie McMahon returns to the stage




WWE has five key brand pillars:
a. Pro-Social
b. Fan Engagement
c. Multicultural
d. Innovation
e. Family Friendly




Our audience is comprised of families, many of whom you will see tomorrow night at WrestleMania at AT&T Stadium.
The energy will be palpable. The smiles will be broad & wide as we create memories that will last a lifetime.

“Tomorrow night we are going to shatter our own attendance record of 93,173 that was previously set all the way back at WrestleMania III.” – Stephanie McMahon

Tomorrow night’s extravaganza would not be possible without this next nominee, and the presenting partner of this year’s WrestleMania. (Plays series of Snickers commercials)










“In February 2016, WWE announced an exclusive partnership with Snickers (presenting partner of WrestleMania). We are thrilled to welcome them to the WWE family.”



(27:30): Executive Vice President Consumer Products – Casey Collins



“Good morning Partners. WWE Consumer Products had an astounding year in 2015 with year-over-year growth of 26%. Without each of you, this would not have been possible so thank you.”


Video Games & Mobile Gaming



WWE has always been a leader in Videogames, and 2015 was a huge year for us.

Our strategy has been to expand our console’s success with our partner 2k through next-generation features and innovative marketing. We understand that our fans want and expect a truly immersive simulation experience. In 2015, our console games were up 48% (year-over-year). With our latest release, WWE 2k16, we’ve been able to drive continuous fan engagement through a host of new features.





Fans asked for it, so we gave them our biggest roster ever with over 140 superstars. The Stone Cold Steve Austin 2K Showcase Mode allows you to relive iconic moments from the Texas Rattlesnake’s Hall of Fame career. And our new career mode lets you define your own legacy by making critical choices while rising through the ranks and finally earning your spot in the WWE Hall of Fame.




We’ve also expanded our footprints in the mobile gaming space with a diverse portfolio of titles for both casual and core fans. The strategy we developed for a non-existent business in 2014 has quickly paid huge dividends.




It all started with WWE SuperCard with over 9 million installs to date, this collectible card battle game has electrified our fans. With an expansive roster of hundreds of customizable cards and gameplay modes.
We followed WWE SuperCard with Immortals, now with over 15 million installs.




Immortals takes your favorite superstars out of the ring and into the supernatural where they jump into epic combat battles with spectacular signature moves.




We’ve also successfully integrated our superstars into other well-established game franchises and genres. Our team is working with some of the highest-grossing titles to build exciting in-game crossover events.




If you’re into street racing games, we have racing rivals from Glu.




Maybe you prefer over-the-top monster trucks? MMX Racing from Hutch would be a great fit for you.




If you like Slot machines but can’t make it Vegas, Hit It Rich! From zynga is your game. 19



And who would have ever thought that Triple H would invade Quahog in TinyCo’s hit Family Guy game.







Next up is WWE Champions by Scopely. This new puzzle game allows you to create and customize your roster with thousands of combinations. You can battle against or team up with friends in live events and tournaments around the world. We’re expecting Champions to be the next hit in Scopely impressive string of seven consecutive #1 titles.




You can definitely expect more as we continue to find new best-in-class partners and expand into new genres like Role-play, City Builders and Strategy games.


Action Figures



WWE is once again the #3 action figure brand behind only Star Wars and Turtles.
Our master toy partner Mattel once again delivered in 2015 with growth of +11%. A key factor that lead to that result was a focused-exclusive product range across all major retailers.




Our Hall of Fame line was a catalyst for this the 30% growth we saw at Target in 2015.




Toys R Us introduced their exclusive range of Network Spotlight products in December. This line focuses on iconic moments highlighted on the WWE Network.




And Walmart has been a vital partner to our brand’s success in the toy aisle. Their exclusive “Then, Now, and Forever” range draws from WWE eras to deliver iconic moments, legendary tandems, and looks of superstars of tomorrow.




Mattel is looking to continue their momentum by developing a broader range of products in 2016 including innovations like the new "Three-Count Crushers." Slam them, fling them, pin them to activate Superstar voices, musics and sounds.



Mattel is also going to bring to life the popular WWE.com inspired Superstars Zombie line for Halloween this year. These ghouls will add to the largest variety of superstars to date in the basic, elite and battle pack assortments.


Toy Partnerships



Last year we also signed a variety of new toy partners to fill in the white space opportunities that we saw and address the market needs and reinforce Mattel’s action figure platform.



Our new partners in 2016 includes jakks pacific, Playmates and Bandai – all top 10 global toy companies.


Tapout





Last year in San Jose, I announced our exciting new partnership with Authentic Brands Group to relaunch TapouT as a leading hardbody fitness group. We and ABG are dedicated to inspiring the athletes in every individual across all facets of fitness.

Today I’m pleased to share with you the new TapouT.








TapouT is about dedication, determination and perseverance. It’s about the commitment and drive it takes to be your personal best.






As the official fitness and training partner of WWE, TapouT products will be worn and used by our superstars as they exercise and train. We’ve partnered with blue chip licensees and retailers to bring a full suite of TapouT products to market around the world.






In fact, TapouT Men’s performance apparel launched at JCPenny’s and tapout.com this past week with John Cena as its spokesperson
Our goal is to offer WWE fans high-quality athletic apparel at an affordable price-point. And men’s apparel – that’s just the beginning.




We’re already working with women’s apparel, boy’s apparel, accessories, gyms and much, much more.
So I’ll leave you today with TapouT, available now at JCPenny’s and tapout.com







(35:30) Stephanie McMahon returns





Play, whether through gaming or toys, is just one way for our fans to engage with WWE because WWE utilizes all of our platforms to create a content ecosystem keeping our fans connected to our brand whenever, wherever, and however they wish.
Let’s take a look at one of our biggest stories going into this year’s WrestleMania – the return of my brother, Shane McMahon.
For the first time in seven years, Shane made a surprise return to Monday Night Raw to reclaim his legacy.

And the world reacted.

“Shane McMahon trended worldwide on Twitter. And Monday Night Raw’s social engagements increased 67%. “

From a storyline perspective, the only way that my brother is able to gain control of WWE, a longshot by the way, is if he’s able to win his match at WrestleMania inside Hell in a Cell against one of the most formidable opponents in all of WWE – the Undertaker.”

Digitally, this story continued on YouTube. WWE posted the clip of Undertaker response to Mr. McMahon saying, “The blood of the son would be on the hands of the father”.

That clip garnered over four million views.
Fans were then given the opportunity to engage through a poll on WWE.com and WWE.com’s new mobile experience asking the audience if Shane McMahon really stood a chance against the Undertaker.

And for those members of the audience that forgot Shane’s in-ring capabilities, they could head over to the WWE Network’s new collections feature showcasing some of Shane’s greatest moments.

All of this of course leads to the live event itself at WrestleMania which of course will be streamed live on the hub of our content ecosystem, WWE Network.


The next nominee not only created original content featuring WWE superstars and legends, but also leveraged all of our platforms to keep our audience connected to their brand and ours.

(Video package all about Take-Two interactive and WWE video games.)

(40:30) WWE President of International, Gerrit Meier

Good Morning everyone, it’s so good to see so many familiar faces and also several new ones.
Three years ago, we established a new growth plan for WWE to refocus and expand our business outside of the United States. This plan focused on brand engagement, embracing cultural diversity and developing key business partnerships. This plan also came with a commitment to you, our partners, to put boots on the ground in your region, innovative with you and write a powerful story about how to grow successfully together.


And together, we have remained diligent and steadfast in the pursuit of this plan, and it has been successful.
As you’ve already heard from Michelle & George, 2015 was a very successful year for WWE as a whole and the same was true for our regional offices which exceeded expectations and collectively grew revenue 46% year-over-year.
Today nearly one-third of WWE’s total revenue comes from outside the US, and it’s particularly exciting see that our business is growing across all of our lines of business and across all of our regions – Europe, Middle East, Asia, Mexico & Latin America as well as Canada – all of which contributed to WWE’s progress.
As mentioned, a key success driver for our growth plan was brand engagement. And WWE’s international facebook engagement grew 130% year-over-year with the number of followers up 62%.

For our live events, we saw average paid attendance growth +19%.
And last, but certainly not least, our international subscribers grew from 5% to 24%.



The international WWE universe is truly engaged and makes a solid base to grow further. A couple of years ago, in our business partner summit in New Orleans, we talked about WWE’s commitment to local investment and new offices and local resources.
We now see these investments paying off. In the Middle east, where we opened a WWE office only two years ago, we built a strong foundation for reoccurring live events – we successfully returned to Abu Dhabi, and Saudi Arabia and in 2016 will expand to Dubai.
On the sponsorship side, we signed our largest international sponsorship deal to date with Hardee’s.



Other local WWE investments tell similar stories. In Mexico, where we recently staffed a new local team, we held our most successful live events in five years. And for our consumer products business, we entered into our first direct-to-retail agreement with Walmart.

In Germany, which serves as our new central office for Continental Europe, as the result of a new regional TV direction including our partners Tele-5 and PROSIEBENSAT, we now have seen a 10x viewership increase just over the last two years alone.

Just a few weeks ago, we successfully returned to the market with a dedicated “Road to WrestleMania” tour and hosted our first ever business partner summit in Germany with over one hundred current and potential partners with similar events in France, Italy, the UK, and other markets.

All of this just a few examples of how we’re evolving in regions.
We’re immersing the WWE brand into these cultures every day. And speaking of our cultural immersion, India remains one of WWE’s top international priorities. We just returned to the market for two successful live events after 14 years absence. This wouldn’t be possible without our partnership with Ten Sports.









This included expanding our reach to a broader audience on Z-TV with a local language program in Hindi and English incorporating local and international stars. This region alone grew our region in India to 120 million households.
All of this is very, very exciting and looking ahead, we will continue to grow and empower a global team of regional resources to embrace the different cultures, different styles, and find ways grow through local expertise and local partnerships. And as such, we will continue to focus on distribution network, expanding our international audience in terms of subscriber base as we just did by launching the WWE Network in India, Germany and Japan.
Social and Digital evolving our approach to grow social engagement. Onboarding new advertising partners and strengthening our regional commerce product offering.

And live events. We will be new live markets, like Latin America and piloting new business and sponsorship opportunities and significantly increasing our corporate social responsibility activities.
We believe that the best chapters in WWE’s international growth story are yet to come and together we can look forward to another great year. Thank you.

(46:20) Stephanie is back out for another nominee.
Sustainable growth in the Middle East.
















OSN deal is through 2019.

Stephanie McMahon is back out.



WWE’s secret sauce is that our fans are part of our show. Can you imagine Monday Night Raw without anyone in the audience? Whether they are holding signs, cheering, booing, tweeting, snapchatting.
Nowhere is that more true than at NXT.
“At NXT, our fans literally choose who is going to make it to the main roster by who they deem most popular.”

Business Partner nominee – Full Sail University










NXT App will fans both live and at home to stay connected like never before.

WWE has awarded $250,000 in scholarships to Full Sail students.
(52:00) EVP Talent, Live Events & Creative

HHH pretends to be nervous. “Nervous. A lot of people. Not used to talking in front of this many people.”

(Stephanie comes out and tells him that he’s got this. The joke dies a terrible death.)

Talent is the lifeblood of what we do.
It’s the DNA. It holds all of our stories together.
Without phenomenal talent, we have no protagonists and we have no antagonists. We have no story to tell.

So how do we create a WWE superstar? And we get asked that all the time.
What do you do when you get asked a question you don’t know the answer to? You do what everybody does – you ask Siri. So that’s what I did. And it turns out it’s really simple, Siri said – this is easy! First, you scour every corner of the globe, you find elite athletes and talent, you create a worldclass training facility that never existed and top that off with a brand that becomes a global sensation. Boom, easy, right?
Siri’s programming might cause it to exaggerate a little bit. It turns out it’s not quite that easy. But what the hell – we did it anyways.
(NXT VIDEO)
75 next generation superstars. Designed to develop the most well-rounded athletes both on and off the screen. Global expansion of our recruiting strategy.
250 athletes tried out. Only 34 received developmental contracts.
The WWE Performance Center and NXT has totally transformed how we create superstars.
Example how? Sasha Banks.





3.5 years went from walking in the door to headlining WrestleMania.

(1:01:00) Stephanie McMahon returns

End of Presentation with John Cena presenting the Business Partner of the Year: NBC Universal.