WWE CONFERENCE CALL – How will WWE address WM32 injury situation?, impact on Network

WWE CEO Vince McMahon is not worried about the injury bug affecting WWE’s roster heading into WrestleMania 32.

Asked during WWE’s fourth quarter conference call how WWE plans to address the situation to deliver revenue and earnings this year, McMahon quickly replied, “By being creative.”

McMahon paused as if that was his final answer before expanding on his thoughts: “We’ll have an awesome WrestleMania. It will be attractive to our audience, just as attractive as last year.”

– Related to WM32’s impact on WWE Network, WWE expects subscriptions to pick up at the end of the First Quarter (around March).

Since WrestleMania takes place in the Second Quarter this year, they’ve added a Network special, “March to WrestleMania,” they hope will accelerate Network subs leading into April.

Financial executive George Barrios noted during the conference call that WWE hit their Network subscription peak of about 1.3 million subs during the first quarter of 2015 since WM31 took place in March last year.

Barrios said WWE does expects “significant growth” again this year, but he said they do not have a specific data point to disclose in terms of how much growth they are expecting.

– One interesting topic that came up during the conference call was how many Network subscribers carried over from WM31 to the end of 2015. Barrios declined to “got into that level of detail” on the subscription patterns.