JPMorgan Fireside Chat 5/15/18 (George Barrios w/ JPMorgan Analyst David Karnovsky)

JPMorgan Fireside Chat 5/15/18

George Barrios w/ JPMorgan Analyst David Karnovsky

George Barrios at 46th Annual JP Morgan Global Technology, Media and Communications Conference

May 15, 2018

TRANSCRIPT

George Barrios co-president of World Wrestling Entertainment

Wanting start things off sure so just we're about some context

give an overview of where we are in the business today so

last year we had record revenues of 800 million dollars

also record profitability record

revenues from outside the US - we're about 30 percent of the revenues now

come from when you think of WWE about two-thirds of that revenue is media and I'll talk

about that a little bit more detail

about 20 percent is selling tickets to events and about 15% is monetizing through consumer products the other prism into the revenue as I mentioned before is by geography

about 70% of the revenue inside the US and about 30% outside the US

when you look at the media we we talk a lot about kind of our the way we think about the media

ecosystem and we create about 1,500 hours of content and put it on three different platforms and we don't put the same content on multiple platforms who really are very very focused on tiering the content

the three platforms are:

1. paid television ad supported video
2. on-demand primarily through the third party platforms like YouTube and Facebook
3. our own direct to consumer network

1. PAY TV

on the paid TV side we put our core in-ring weekly content

It's the most important content we create

it's five hours of live event content 52 weeks a year

so unlike the sports leagues there is no off season

in the United States you'd see Raw and SmackDown on USA

It's they're the number one and number two shows on the number one cable network

and the United's in the United States we're also one of the most watched pieces of live content

in the u.s. In fact second last year behind the the NFL

2. ON DEMAND

then you have AVOD work platforms we create about 600 hours just for that it's clips of some of the long-form but also a lot of original content

for example we have a gaming channel up up down down that will create about 200 hours of content just for that we have a total diva channel and obviously the core WWE channel on YouTube which has about 25 million subscribers well

a lot of people don't know WWE is the number two channel in the history of YouTube so number one is T series which is a Bollywood focused movie channel on YouTube but we're the

number 2 channel as measured by YouTube in the history of YouTube

we're also the number one sports channel in the history of YouTube so last year across all the

AVOD platforms we did about 22 billion video views so that's the second platform

3. WWE NETWORK

the third platform

if you think of Raw and SmackDown as the regular season that sits in the paid TV bundle

our direct-to-consumer service $9.99 a month available around the world

will have our playoffs no 12 to 14 special live events

including our Superbowl (WrestleMania) that happened a few weeks ago in New Orleans

will create new content for our biggest fans

it could be documentaries

it could be animation using our IP

we've done reality series again for our biggest fans

you're also able to view the next generation of WWE Superstars

so we have a training facility Performance Center in Orlando with about a hundred talent

training to be the next generation of WWE stars

they put on events we capture those events and we provide them on the direct-to-consumer and then we also use it as a place to bring the entirety of our library including what resides on the other two platforms eventually we window and

I mentioned that we tier the content but eventually all the content ends up on the direct-to-consumer so it is the one place for everything WWE

$9.99 a month were the second largest sports AVOD service in the world behind MLB baseball with around 2 million subscribers which we announced recently so that's the media series

really live event content pay TV

engage next generation fans 24/7

storytelling on the AVOD platforms and

then for our most ardent fans and that's

important it's not for every fan because it's an additional price

we're asking you to pay but for our most passionate fans of the direct-to-consumer service on the live event side obviously incredibly important because it creates the media that I just monetize so

we do about almost 600 events around the world including our Developmental League we create media from about 130 or 140 of those events and again that forms the core asset that we monetize in the media segments that I talked about

and then as I mentioned also in consumer products the primary categories being apparel toys and video game

interesting fact: last year WWE was the number one action figure in the United States

so more than Marvel more than Star Wars

as we look to the future we tell people we feel really good about all our businesses but we really think the growth comes in the media business

so whether it's continuing to monetize the core content Raw and SmackDown continuing to grow or direct the consumer service and also then continuing to deepen our position

on the avod platforms

both third party and our owned and operated that's where we see the growth

I mentioned the monetization that 30% of the revenue comes from outside the US 70 percent of

all the video consumption I talked about when you add up all those platforms 70% of all the time spent on WWE video happens outside the US

30 percent monetization

70 percent engagement

We think over the time that gap closes as because a lot of where that consumption is happening is in countries like India or Southeast Asia or the Middle East and so as those economies evolve GDP grows grows advertising tends to follow that

subscription revenue tends to follow that and the whole M&E sector in the marketplace grows and if we can keep doing what we do which is entertaining people and engaging them we should do well

the last piece I'll touch on is kind of another prism to look into the business that I just talked about is this digital slow social and directed consumer transformation touching us

I'm talking about the media but just to put in context back in 2010 company did about 470 million dollars in revenue about 10% of that was on digital platforms and about 25% of that

was direct to consumer

today a much bigger company 800 million in revenue roughly 40% is coming on digital platforms and just over 50% is direct to consumer so there's been a very pointed strategy to grow the digital social and direct-to-consumer businesses at WWE

Q&A

Q: OK, Great. I guess I'll start high-level and then.

George the media world has changed pretty substantially since 2014 when you last renewed your major rights deals how do you think WWE in its place in the content ecosystem have changed since then

A: yeah I mean I think we we've continued to deliver and its market by market

so it's hard to just give one answer to globally

we have partners all around the world

so we're on smackdown -

that's available here with NBC Universal it's available in the UK with Sky, with Sony in India, Fox in Latin America, OSN and NBC in the Middle East so

the answer depends geography by geography

in the US we tend to believe that people who can aggregate live eyeballs are valuable

as you mentioned we've announced that we expect to and we've said

we expect to announce our u.s. distribution strategy sometime between May and September so time will tell

it's a small market with a small number of buyers and so we'll see where that goes

Q: your current contract with NBC Universal domestically distributes Raw and SmackDown for a five-year period and I think it includes digital rights you know looking ahead do you see the need

for a similar structure meaning

could WWE do a longer-term deal or could you even see splitting the TV and digital rights

A: yeah the time obviously is inexorably linked with the economics

the length of the deal as well as how you view the kind of the ecosystem changing so

we're we're flexible within certain time frames

We wouldn't do probably a 20-year deal but we would be comfortable doing longer than five

And as far as the the structure of the rights ultimately David the market is the one that determines

whether you can do that or not I think  the the live content that does

it to the greatest degree is the NFL and it's because it's by far the single largest by far single largest SAR aggregator live eyeballs in the US so they're able to do that others less so so in essence you have to let the market and obviously from a Content owner the more you can slice the rights the more economically beneficial although we are we take great care in tiering the content in a way that kind of rises all boats so we're really cognizant about this

why I mentioned that before early on that we try to be really strategic about what content is in pay TV what's on a boat and what's direct-to-consumer because in our view with our IP if we were just to put everything everywhere we're not sure that's healthy for the ecosystem

So we've got to be thoughtful about that when you think about the rights but ultimately the market determines whether you're able to do that just to follow on

Q:  I mean the you mentioned the NFL you know the NFL and other sports leagues  part of the reason they've been able to get higher rights views as they sell their content to multiple partners  could WWE conceivably split Raw and SmackDown between different companies and and what are the challenges to doing something like that I know you've you've had it on SyFi and USA in the past but that was all on the NBC umbrella yeah I mean again

market determines it on that opportunity

from our end if if the question were or

do you guys think that's an issue to

split it right yeah we don't and we have

done it before we think we're

pretty good at promoting and moving our

viewers kind of from one platform to

another seven or eight years ago it was

only from one network to another network

which changed dramatically I mean it's a

sea change it can we can't overemphasize

it is the nature of social and digital

and helping do that so we've been able

to do it before we would feel even more

comfortable doing it today just because

we we have a direct connection with all

our fans which we did not have seven or

eight years ago so our ability to do

that with its we think it would

be if it made sense economically if

their partners interested if we

comfortable with the partners in

question kind of operationally we don't

see an issue doing that it we

recently saw UFC sign a deal with ESPN

plus which is a platform that

did not exist even a few months ago it's

only part of the UFC package but what

read through if any do you see

for WWE again I'm not gonna talk about

any specific partners I think the

interesting

thing is like you mentioned the he said

before the ecosystem is changing

dramatically just said here's a

platform that didn't increase a few

months ago didn't exist a few months ago

obviously Disney's been very vocal about

their focus now on direct-to-consumer so

this in essence would be their first

major for a so as a rights holder an IP

owner it's I think makes sense

to everyone the more outlets there are

generally the better for you so we wish

them success obviously as a

direct-to-consumer someone who's been

doing direct-to-consumer now video for

four years were well versed in that

business so we're also looking at ESPN

Plus specifically as a product just to

learn from it we think the

Disney is incredibly smart

everything they do tends to be done well

so and I think that I'm a subscriber to

the ESPN Plus product I think it's great

so just internally operationally we're

seeing what we can learn from it got it

that deal I guess when you

think about it while lucrative on a on a

per fight basis probably the flip side

is that you have seen might be

distributing potentially to a smaller

audience at least relative to TV you

know when you think about your own

content how do you balance

potentially lucrative fees from digital

against things like audience reach and

engagement yeah we talked about that

whole issue of what's the

purpose of a piece of content and where

does it go it's kind of this delicate

balance it's probably the most difficult

strategic question that we're always

wrestling with internally so when we

create miz and maurice or total divas

what should that go on direct the

consumer should that be on the avon

platform should it be on paid TV and

ultimately you're making that decision

by looking at four things number one in

terms of what's the content main goal is

it to bring in new fans so fans you

don't have today is it to deepen

engagement with your current fans is it

to help monetize other parts of your

business so promotion or is it direct

monetization all right so those are the

four things you're always thinking

through so when you ask the question

about the trade-off of for ESPN plus you

know they're early days you're gonna be

trading off distribution the economics

at least from what I what we saw you

know and again we only saw what was

public seen

pretty good so I'm sure UFC is thinking

through those trade-offs it's what we do

so long-winded way of saying would we

consider making trade-offs like that one

versus the other yeah we do that all the

time and so but it's got to work in the

hole so if you're going to in one

example lose distribution to gain more

economics you have to have a strategy

around how am I gonna engage fans that I

may not be engaging now that again

that's why the social and digital for us

is so important six seven eight

years ago the answer would have been

don't know how I'm going to do that

today that today we know how to do that

so that's why it's really important it

gives you more flexibility just

sticking with social and digital you you

recently wrapped up the mix match

challenge on Facebook now how'd this

series fare relative your expectation

and do you see potential for producing

new shows for the watch tab or

could you even utilize some of your you

know existing network programming that

had that spot after Smackdown like 2 or

5 live yeah so yeah it's funny cuz

everybody asks and it's a natural

question so how'd it do versus your

expectations and of course you're doing

something for the first time ever so

it's hard to have any expectations

around it and I think that goes for

Facebook thing if you ask them because

we did what what would make

this successful for you guys because

obviously that that's a really important

thing for us and I think they're still

determining what success is we

know what the metric is it's time so

it's how many people are you reaching

and how much time are they spending I

mean that's easy that's what we measure

and we're kind of super intense about

measuring time and making sure we have

our arms around that so having said that

we've taken

Facebook's lead and they seem to be

really happy with with how mix-matched

challenge was or how it performs so in

in turn we are - we learned we learned

some things we learned some things

around the scheduling we learned some

things around the promotion both within

Facebook and externally and we still

kind of the the viewership get impacted

by different different things

we're trying I think we're in early days

I remember someone in early meeting with

Facebook around mix-matched challenge

said look we our goal is to reinvent TV

great TV which means

the viewership experience so I don't

think we've done that with mix-matched

challenge I think we did some

interesting things on how we embedded

the social feed and in its own but I

think there's a real opportunity to kind

of push the envelope over time and do

things and if facebook we're interested

in the future we would we like

those guys and girls so I think it was

reported that there there might have

been a revenue share element to the deal

do kind of what the ad load was

that Facebook ended up showing against

the content I think it was after the

first few matches yeah it was so it was

more structured as a rights deal right

not a not a rev share so we don't have a

ton of visibility into the ad load kind

of similar with YouTube you can get some

understanding but again our

understanding from the Facebook team was

that they were happy with how things

went okay outside the US you

know you're set to renew deals in the UK

in India for domestic investors

who are less familiar with those markets

kind of the same as my first

question how do you see WWE

programming is position to the

last time you renewed those deals in

2014

yeah it's you they're different

markets so UK a little bit more similar

to the US and that it's it's going

through this transformation around

multiple platforms and kind of the

incumbent platforms are dealing with

that transformation now maybe not to the

extent that you you talk about it in the

US but there's still elements of that

historically we've been with Sky for

about 25 years so they're a long time

partner a great partner we're fairly

tiered up in the sky platform so the

consumers actually got has to pay quite

a bit to get Raw and SmackDown it's

probably the place in the world will

them were the most tiered obviously one

of the things that's happened over the

last 12 months or so is that Amazon has

started bidding for and has acquired

exclusive rights and not just digital

rights but actually exclusive rights to

the content that's something new

in the media sector and they've done it

I think now they've three different

packages from were correct in the UK

specifically so that'll that's it's kind

of an interesting dynamic so similar to

we're not going to talk about

what we're expecting on the right side

what we've said is we expect to announce

an hour distribution strategy towards

the end of this year so after the we

think it'll we'll probably on sit after

the US and then in India very very

different market obviously and we've

been in India over 20 years currently

are with Sony has our rights I think the

really interesting thing going on in

India over the last 12 months as the

price of broadband has plummeted

so Reliance Geo mobile broadband

provider is in essence disrupted that

market with broadband pricing which

that's now created this huge new

consumption wave on mobile devices so

you'll hear people in India we were just

there talk about the next

billion users in the country maybe

closer to half a billion coming on those

devices that had then has led Reliance

Geo and some of the other mobile

providers to begin acquiring content so

that's new in that market place so

that's an interesting dynamic for for us

as a rights holder wrestling WWE is one

of the most viewed content in India so

IPL is by far the largest if

you have if you're not familiar with

India would be the analog would be the

NFL here

Kabaddi which is another sport does well

and so but here over the last few years

we've been we've either been the second

or third most watched property in India

so we we do well and gave me it's our

largest country when I talk about those

media platforms I mentioned

time we'll do five to six billion hours

of total time spent with our content our

largest market not per capita but in

total is India so it's an important

market for us we've done well so far and

we'll say we expect to announce the

distribution plans there somewhere in

the first half of next year and does

that broadband dynamic in India

lower pricing open up guys like

Facebook or Amazon or even hot star to

kind of come in and

and be more aggressive with

content also yeah look we think so I

think if you look at Facebook's activity

in terms of trying to acquire live

writes the most aggressive bid that I'm

aware of was in India so and it was for

digital rights it wasn't for exclusive

rights but they bid I think six hundred

and fifty million over five years for

the IPL rights and two months the best

of my knowledge we had never seen that

large a bid for any type of content from

Facebook so it seemed to show that they

were serious but you mentioned some of

the other big players they're like hot

star which an indigenous player and

YouTube of course so it it

seems like these new entrants are

becoming more aggressive in competing

it's just sticking with international I

want to ask you about the the Saudi deal

and maybe you could provide some history

for us how did you first kind

of develop a presence in that market and

then how do you grow that to the point

where you're staging a tremendous

production like like the greatest Royal

Rumble yeah it's interesting

because everything without context seems

like a one-off seven or eight

years ago we were talking a lot about

our focus on the social and digital

platforms and at the time because we

were in the middle of our transformation

people say well you're talking a lot

about it because you want to distract

people from how the business is doing

because we're going through this pretty

big transformation we said no not really

we're talking a lot about it because

it's the most important thing we're

working on internally and I think the

story I'll tell is I do remember the day

that Vince kind of brought his top team

into small conference room adjacent to

his office and he said hey starting this

Friday every week I need everyone in

this room to write me a one-page summary

of what you did this week to drive

social and digital engagement and in

every function in the business and it

was this notion that this was going to

be transformational we couldn't dabble

in it we could just spend some time

working on it or delegate it to someone

had to be

the absolute mission of everyone in the

company so you fast forward seven or

eight years later in case you don't know

Saudi Arabia is the number one country

per capita for YouTube consumption so it

is a heavy user of YouTube it's

something we've been looking at and

watching for multiple years we have a

great partner in the Middle East a paid

TV partner osm a great partner but we

don't have great free-to-air

distribution in the Middle East so broad

distribution so our vehicle to build and

engage the fan base in the Middle East

at the biggest scale has been YouTube

and Facebook so then you fast forward

and vision 2030 MBS is vision for Saudi

Arabia comes about a nap there

entertaining as part of that vision

sports as part of that vision so as

they're looking around and saying well

who are the biggest sports properties in

Saudi Arabia guess who rises to the top

it's WWE and then in essence that leads

to a discussion which then leads to a

10-year partnership which then leads to

doing the first time we've ever done a

WrestleMania scale production anywhere

other than WrestleMania let alone

outside the US let alone in a place with

who has never done that type of

production so it was incredible

we in essence brought every piece of

equipment and every piece of talent to

operate that equipment into the country

because it had never been done before

they've done large event soccer events

and so on but it don't have doesn't have

the production value that you'd have as

at a WrestleMania scale and I always

tell people at least for us I still get

chills when you if you go on to our

network app that's where the greatest

Royal Rumble is available outside the

Middle East and you see it's a

sold-out King Abdullah Stadium so

40-plus thousand people kind of having

what seems like the time of

their life enjoying WWE content and to

be able to put smiles on people's faces

in these different parts of the world

with different cultural mores and is you

know it's we don't take that for granted

so it was really exciting so that was

the the context really was something

that we can seven or eight years ago and

this is just one manifestation of that

social and digital strategy there

fruit and do you see an opportunity to

kind of run that digital in social

PlayBook and other markets like

China potentially yeah we're doing that

today

yeah China China is interesting it's

probably one of my personal biggest

regrets is that we didn't we weren't as

aggressive on the indigenous social and

digital platforms in China seven or

eight years ago as we were on the global

platforms and part of that was just you

had to make trade-offs it wasn't that we

didn't think about it it's just

you're making trade-offs and making

choices we've now for about the last

four three or four years ever since we

signed the our exclusive deal with pptv

in the market had really been building

up the social digital art social digital

talent in the market to try and grow the

same kind of scale as we've done

elsewhere so we're early days in some

ways relatively speaking in China but

yet we're but other other than that were

it's a little bit earlier the social

digital playbook is being played out

around the world today what we've said

is as we can what we will continue to do

is invest in those so and that means

more content to creating more hours and

it also means being more aggressive and

localizing the content more languages

and so on so we will continue to do that

I think you said that once you

have clarity and your TV deals or your

major TV deals you'll update

investors on your long term financial

outlook when you look ahead

what are the key areas of investment for

WWE and how your cost growth be

impacted by the renewals I mean I that

will determine kind of our investment

levels based on finalizing our

distribution plans for on Smackdown

globally and we should have a pretty

good idea about idea around the vast

majority of that distribution by the

middle sometime in the middle of next

year once the once our plans in India

are solidified but we we anticipate that

it's going to we're going to invest in

three areas and they overlap one is data

and technology as we become more digital

social direct-to-consumer kind of that

data stack becomes incredibly important

it is today already second is in

creating more content more video you

know again we're all fighting for time

we stole the line from Reed Hastings we

can Pete with everybody and everything

including sleep so that really res

with us internally so we're shameless

stealers of good ideas so we're gonna

keep creating more content and then

we're gonna localize its this 70% of

consumption happened outside the US we

think there's just a real opportunity to

go even deeper so you'll see investments

in those three areas and things work

come together so people have

asked us you guys have started dabbling

with local content so we did a UK

championship last year that we put on

tubby W Network so that was all UK

talent not not the talented you see on

Raw and SmackDown and we ran a

tournament in market and people have

said is that is that part of a

bigger idea and it is it's it's

again it's not a one-off we're testing

we're learning but the opportunity we

think again because you again

seven or eight years ago if you had a

new piece of video you had to find

another party to put it on a invent on a

constrained platform about 24 linear

television platform that was the only

way today and I can't emphasize this

enough we create a piece of video we can

put in any broadband enable home in the

world

so the opportunity to do more video has

grown exponentially so when you see us

do something like the UK championship

it's not the one-off of the UK

championship it's that's really learning

about the opportunity to create

localized content maybe with local stars

and we like what we saw last year so

when you when we talk about investments

things like that yeah I want ask you in

the network it's it's now in its fifth

year your distributed I think in almost

every market in the world it seems like

the next big step up and growth may come

from personalization

localization or tearing of the market of

the network

what opportunities do you see

both at the high end and the low end of

the market and what are some of the risk

to be aware of when you you're gonna be

adjusting the product potentially yeah

yeah and you mentioned when you

talk about investment and you focus

specifically on then on the network on

the data tech side it is about

personalization so we think there's a

real opportunity there and again it's

not that's not a new thought it's just

we're you asked what the

companies trying to achieve financially

is we're trying to invest for the long

term while continuing to

grow and expand in the short-term

profitability so you have to make

choices but we think on the

data and technology and products I

personalization is a big opportunity in

the network

you mentioned localization today the

network's available everywhere in the

world but it's a u.s. product it's in

English US currency we feel pretty

strongly that localizing it gives us

opportunities in the markets where it's

already available to go deeper and grow

the network another level and then

finally I mentioned the the company's

overall business is ticket it's video

product that's the way in essence that

we touch all our fans and and we think

there's a way to bring all of those

things together in one place so we've

talked about the the notion of tearing

the content of tearing the network

having maybe a premium tier where you

can bring a lot together and make it

easier for our fans to interact with us

who are our most ardent fans we also

think there's an opportunity on a lower

price or free tier as well just giving

people a place to engage with more

content that helps grow the

over overall service so yeah we're

excited over the next couple years and

you mentioned all that change

there's inherent operational and

executional risk within that it's one of

the reasons we've taken our time I know

investors have asked for a long time

when are you going to do these things

and we've said it's coming and part of

it is there's a business model model

element to this you have to be smart

when you tear because if you do it the

wrong way it becomes cannibalistic as

opposed to a creatives so there's the

business model element but there's also

the product user experience so we wanted

to take our time and learn and

we we've been doing a lot of that for

last four years so here I think in the

next year or two you'll see some changes

that we think are going to be beneficial

with your new reporting structure you

you started breaking out a separate

revenue line item for advertising and

sponsorship which appears to be growing

at a really healthy rate can you help us

unpack what's in this segment both in

terms of traditional sponsorship and

then digital advertising and what sort

of a growth driver among those

did yeah so if you think about media the

rights to the a lot of the advertising

for our most valuable product which is R

on Smackdown are given to our partners

who pay us a license fee so that means

the the assets that we're left with on

sponsorship and advertising and you

touched on them are primarily the

digital and social assets as well as the

overall sponsorship with the brand and

both of those have been growing but

there's no doubt that the the digital

and social and and YouTube specifically

have grown dramatically over the last

six or seven years so that's been a big

part of the growth try but all elements

have including the sponsorship

have shown some nice lifts so yeah when

we reduce the number of segments we

started getting a little bit more

visibility into the secular revenue line

I don't including that one and

on the digital side is that growth

coming from just more content

we're at more places to sell ad

units are you getting higher CPM s on

that off yeah it's a little it's a

little bit of all of it so you're

driving more hours that we are putting

out there more engagement is happening

and CPMs are improving I always tell

people when you think about our digital

advertising because 75% of that

consumption is happening outside the US

you have different levels of CPM so the

CPM is in India are very different than

the CPM s in the US as are the

sell-through rates so those are still

kind of in lagging us metrics but we

expect that to change over time again

generally as the economies grow but you

know you've seen growth kind of across

all the key levers okay we have a few

minutes left want to open it up to the

room over here

Giorgio's with Disney's recent

acquisition of bamdeck does that change

your guys thoughts on using BAM Tex

platform for your OTT product no I mean

it's it's an input into the

decision-making but if you look

out at our video supply chain we use

multiple partners whether it's encompass

or any tea an EP or BAM Tech fun we're

on the mobile app side so we use

multiple providers and bam Tex

part of that video supply chain but I

wouldn't describe it as a strategic part

of it so we're always evaluating every

vendor to try to improve the product so

I wouldn't say it's a acquisition it's a

huge part of our thinking but it goes

into it any others in the room no just

on the network I know I've asked you

this in the past but some of

the other media companies we talk to

always talk about the benefit of

district distributing their subscription

services through an Amazon or Hulu I

think domestically you're still all

direct do you see the potential

to distribute through a wholesale

partner yeah I mean we we talked to

people continuously actually around the

world and what I always have

said David is it's a combination of what

the economic relationship is it's the

user data as well as a consumption data

so we've got to balance all that we're a

little bit different than a general

entertainment network who needs reach

and needs to be available in multiple

platforms I always mentioned that there

are direct consumer service our for our

most passionate fans it's I'm not trying

to get someone who's a not a WWE fan to

subscribe to WWE Network that's not

going to happen what's going to happen

is I may bring in a new fan who starts

watching Raw and Smackdown on YouTube or

sees it on on USA or sky they become a

fan and they say boy I've got to get

WrestleMania yeah I'm gonna get the WWE

or so I the the value of having being on

one of those platforms I think might be

there may be some incremental value

centralized billing and so on but not so

much so that we're willing to make kind

of significantly stood a significant

trade

some those other things economics the

user information the consumption data

I've got time for one more an

interesting note in your 10 Q is that

WWE sold the naming rights for the XFL

to alpha entertainment and I think in

exchange you got a minority equity

interest in the new XFL I know there's

no financial obligation for WWE to XFL

but I level thoughts on the

endeavor yeah look I mean I'm a huge

football fan

it is the 800-pound gorilla in terms of

video consumption the United States it's

it's the sport with the biggest

offseason so you're there's no football

college or pro between the

Super Bowl and kind of September 1 so it

looks like it's a really good

opportunity I think the it will require

cap of significant capital so when we

WWE looked at it we said that's a pretty

big level of investment at venture type

risks and probably doesn't fit in a

public company of our size

Vince has the capital to do it on his

own so that's how alpha was formed and

and then we we struck a deal on the on

the on the marks recently like you

mentioned so well yeah we're we're I'm

excited to see him so you have another

big success with the XFL all right

George thanks for coming all right

thanks for having us