WWE held their 2015 second quarter earning conference call today. Michael Weiss opened the call and welcomed everybody, noting that Vince McMahon and George Barrios are also on the call. Vince McMahon talked first and said that the WWE delivered strong earnings and that it shows the value of their content. Vince said that they had a 38% international growth and that the WWE Network earnings have exceeded their pay-per-view revenue and that they are on the right path with it.

Vince put over the new original content coming to the WWE Network and said that they are at over 1.2 million subscribers right now. Vince said that they are doing their own version of HBO’s “Hard Knocks”, they are working on developing a new studio show and that they are launching their own version of a show similar to South Park called Camp WWE in 2016. Vince praised WWE Tough Enough and Total Divas and claimed that they had 14 million unique viewers with those shows combined with WWE RAW and WWE SmackDown and pushed how major their social media footprint has become and said that they will be working with Facebook.

George Barrios took over and noted that the WWE Network generated more revenue for the company than their annual pay-per-view business had over the previous decade and that the Beast in the East special was the most-watched program in the history of the WWE Network with the exception of pay-per-view events. Barrios then ran down the number for the earnings quarter. Barrios noted that there will be a reality series launching for the WWE NXT roster, the aforementioned WWE Studio show and a show that would see a fan sit down with a WWE Superstar and Diva and said that they also plan to expand the WWE Network’s video on demand areas and said that they will continue with the free month option for new subscribers. Barrios said that the WWE plan to sell WWE Network cards in stores, similar to how you can purchase an iTunes card and said that they will release the next WWE Network subscriber count at the end of the third quarter.

The floor was then opened up for the Q&A session and when it was noted that the company intends to have 180 hours of programming and whether they were still in line with their projected costs for the year, Barrios noted that they are. They were then asked about the different countries that are yet to have gotten the WWE Network and Barrios said that they had 9 counties in mind when they launched and that they have checked off four of them and are working on others, but can’t give details. They were then asked whether they were making more money with the WWE Network subscription model versus whether they had remained on pay-per-view, to which Barrios said that they would based on the pay-per-view numbers of the last decades, especially when they hit their projected 1.3 million – 1.4 million subscribers. They were then asked about the new partnership with Facebook where they were invited to be one of the brands to provide video content and share in revenue, to which Barrios said that they are early on, but they know they can crush it.

They were asked about the programming they need for the WWE Network, to which Vince McMahon said that they need to develop content that plays to all the different age demographics. They were then asked about WWE SummerSlam, to which Barrios said that it isn’t there yet, but it is starting to feel like the WrestleMania in August. Vince said that they were so happy with the content of the show that the made the decision to expand to four hours. They were then asked about doing more specials similar to the Beast in the East. Barrios said that they will continue to do those sort of specials, because the first one that they done was a home run. They were then asked about NXT continuing to be built as a franchise. Barrios said that Triple H has done an amazing job and that we’ve seen talents go from there to main events and it serves a somewhat unique audience and is different from WWE RAW and WWE SmackDown. Vince said that he is confident about the talents that they are going to churn out from WWE NXT. They were then asked about the situation with Hulk Hogan and the company severing ties. Vince McMahon said that Hogan is no longer associated with the organization and it would have no material effect on WWE and that they will focus on talents who can actually compete inside the ring. Michael Weiss noted that was the end of the call and thanked everyone for their time.