WWE Chairman and CEO Vince McMahon admitted that they were disappointed with the amount of money they got from the NBC Universal deal although he was happy with the International deals that the company managed to get done so far.
The company recently wrapped up deals in the United Kingdom, Thailand, and finalizing a deal in India, all of which were deals that WWE got more money from. The average annual value of these key television agreements along with the NBC Universal deal is approximately $200 million, representing an increase of more than $90 million from previous deals.
One important thing mentioned was that the three shows negotiated – RAW, Smackdown, and Total Divas – have different end dates and were not negotiated as one package as WWE has hoped for. WWE timed all their shows to expire at the same time to get them all as one however Chief Financial Officer George Barrios said that all the shows are on a less than five year deal and they’re still finalizing certain aspects of the contract.
When an investor asked if the launch of the WWE Network hurt negotiations, Vince McMahon said it probably did have a negative effect after all. Timing was everything though and if they didn’t launch it in February they would have needed to wait another year since the idea was always to lunch prior to WrestleMania.
