5 Surprising Revelations From The WWE Earnings Report

1. Saudi Arabia Is So Beautiful! Maybe.

This feels like a comfortable topic to start with.

As we’ve reported, WWE used the press release to announce that it “has decided to uphold its contractual obligations to the General Sports Authority and stage [Crown Jewel]”.

While this seems to be an unequivocal commitment to travel to Saudi Arabia next week, lurking amongst the footnotes to the earnings report is a notable qualifier, perhaps providing WWE with some wriggle room should the situation continue to deteriorate:

“The Company is continuing to monitor ongoing developments in the region, and there can be no assurances in this regard. If the event were to be cancelled, there could be a material adverse impact on 2018 [income]. While not anticipated, it is possible that a cancellation could also impact expected results beyond 2018.”

Although it appears a near certainty at this point that Crown Jewel will be going ahead as planned, it’s clear that WWE has not entirely excluded the possibility of cancelling the event.

One reason for hedging its bets in this manner is that the controversial Saudi show is still causing ripples in the main stream consciousness.

Consider, for example, the words of Dan Le Batard when addressing the news on his nationally syndicated radio show (which boasts 2.2 million weekly listeners and almost 60 million annual podcast downloads):

“Did you see that the WWE is still going to Saudi Arabia? What a bad decision that is.

[But] there’s a lot of money in Saudi Arabia – so much money. And so wrestling is going back to Saudi Arabia as we wonder whether Saudi Arabia kills journalists with bone saws. It’s crazy!

…

We’re usually not quite that coldly overt about ‘yeah, we’ll take your money – your blood money – no matter what’.”

Crown Jewel has become a public relations nightmare for WWE. Unfortunately, as they say, you can’t buy private jets with public relations.

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