WWE Network Stock Price Falls After Extreme Rules PPV, Can Subscriber Numbers Reach One Million?
The WWE Network stock price has continued its free fall after the recent WWE Extreme Rules 2014 PPV event. But what are the WWE Network subscriber numbers now that the pay-per-view event has passed?
In a related report by The Inquisitr, the WWE Network stock price following WrestleMania 30dropped from a $31.55 high in mid-April all the way down to around $20 by the end of the week. Prior to WWE Extreme Rules 2014 the WWE stock was still holding at a little over $20, but now half way through the week investors have driven the price down to $17.83 as of today’s closing bell, telling Vince McMahon that investors do not have faith in his business plan.
Right after WrestleMania 30 ended the company revealed that the network had 667,287 subscribers and was on track to hit its target of a million subscribers by the end of 2014. Although WWE was able to get nearly 670,000 subscribers in only six weeks, to put these WWE Network subscriber numbers in perspective they’d initially hoped to reach the one million mark with just WrestleMania 30 alone. The only good news is that the number of viewers for WM 30 were at a record high if you include the 400,000 purchases of the PPV event through standard methods.
For the first quarter of 2014, the WWE Network reported a net loss of $8 million compared to a net income of $3 million in the first quarter last year. The company claims the decline in net income was driven by the launch of the WWE Network streaming service and lower results from its video game licensing business, due primarily to the transition to a new licensee. Because of the additional costs it’s claimed the break-even point for WWE Network subscriber numbers is one million subscribers, and two million subscribers would completely transform the business.
To put things in perspective, when the WWE Network launched it had around 250,000 people sign up immediately and was adding about 25,000 subscribers per day right before WrestleMania 30. Assuming the buyout rate dropped since then we can assume an average of around 5,000 new subscribers per day leading up to Extreme Rules 2014. While the Authority hasn’t said anything official, if we assume high end estimates are true then that means about 150,000 more subscribers are in the system. Even if the enrollment rate is half that we’re still looking at 75,000 new subscribers, which puts the WWE Network at over 750,000.
Overall, that’s actually good news for the WWE Network stock price. Even if all those subscribers didn’t watch Extreme Rules 2014, or the new signups flat-lined, they still had at least 667,287 people paying for the event, which is now a record for any non-WrestleMania PPV. In addition, even if the number of new subscribers averages only a little over 1,000 per day then the WWE Network will meet its goal of one million for certain by the end of 2014, and may even exceed that number by the fall.
What do you think Vince McMahon should do to help the WWE Network stock price?
