Liberty Media Corporation

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Liberty Media Corporation's first quarter 2022 earnings call. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, we will conduct a question and answer session. At that time, if you have a question, please press star 1 on your telephone. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded May 6th. I would now like to turn the conference over to Courtney Chun, Chief Portfolio Officer. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Before we begin, we'd like to remind everyone that this call includes certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual events or results could differ materially due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those mentioned in Liberty Media's most recent forms 10-K and 10-Q, or Liberty Media Acquisition's most recent forms 10-K and 10-Q, filed with the SEC. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this call. and Liberty Media and Liberty Media Acquisition expressly disclaim any obligation or undertaking to disseminate any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statement contained herein to reflect any change in Liberty Media or Liberty Media Acquisition's expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions, or circumstances on which any such statement is based. On today's call, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures for Liberty Media and SiriusXM, including adjusted OIDA and adjusted EBITDA. The required definitions and reconciliations for Liberty Media and SiriusXM, Schedules 1 and 2, can be found at the end of the earnings press release issued today, which is available on Liberty Media's website. Now I'd like to turn the call over to Liberty President and CEO, Greg Maffei.

Thank you, Courtney, and good morning to all of our listeners. Today speaking on the call, we'll also have Formula One's President and CEO, Stefano Domenicali, and Liberty's Chief Accounting and Principal Financial Officer, Brian Wendling. So I'll begin with Liberty Sirius XM. We received $872 million of gross dividends from Siri tax-free in the first quarter, including the special and regular dividend. Because of the nature of our convertible bonds, we had to pass through $30 million of that special dividend. We continued our share repurchases, repurchasing $182 million across LSXMA and K from February to April. We repurchased those at a look-through price on Siri of about $356 a share. We, of course, remain disappointed with the discount and attack it as much as we can. We are very focused on long-term value creation for our shareholders. Now looking at SiriusXM itself, solid start to the year, continued to perform well financially despite a challenging auto market. Revenue was up 6%. Monthly churn was wonderful, down at 1.6%. And we had record ARPU up 9%. New car penetration for SiriusXM is now at 83% and has enabled a fleet of 146 million cars here in the US. As expected, self-paying net ads were down slightly due to challenges in the auto market. This was partially offset by strength in digital, and we had a 50% increase in the subs listening digitally to our on-demand content. I'd also note we launched our first ever streaming channel for economics dedicated to podcasting and available across all the SXM platforms. SXM Media was named the number one podcast ad network, according to Edison Research, and we represent four of the top 15 podcasts in the country with the addition of Crooked Media in this month. Also beginning with this year's Masters, SiriusXM is the exclusive audio provider for the tournament and providing excellent programming across all four rounds. Turning to Live Nation. Live's first best quarter ever, including yet another record quarter at Ticketmaster. And compared to 2019, AOI is up two times. Transacted GTV is up 39% and Sponsorship AOI is up 75%. We expect a record 2022. We've already sold 70 million concert tickets. and expect double-digit fan growth versus 2019. Concert ticket pricing is up double digits over 2019 due to fan demand for the best seats. And over 90% of our planned sponsorship net revenue is already committed. Turn to Formula One Group. On the corporate side, we repurchased 348,000 FWANA shares for $20 million or $56.14 a share. And looking at F1 itself, thrilling start to the 2022 season. So far, we've had battles back and forth on who will be on the podium each weekend. The Sprint event at Imola brought exciting qualifying results, and the format is working well with the new regulations and producing strong viewership numbers. The Sprint audience is up 28% versus the qualifying last year at Imola. We also see record demand in the U.S. early in this season. On ESPN, viewers for the Sunday race in both Saudi and Bahrain were up 56%. And that was the most viewed race since ESPN reacquired the Formula One rights in 2018. The momentum in the United States continues with this weekend's inaugural Miami GP. And of course, you can't have not heard about the announcement of our Las Vegas GP for November 2023. As we've noted before, that'll be a night race down the strip. And notably and differently than most places, Formula One and Liberty Media are self-promoting the race in partnership with local stakeholders and Live Nation. The build-out for this track will require increased CapEx and OpEx to develop, and it's too early to provide you with numbers, but we intend to update you later this year. I would note that Liberty Media did enter an agreement to acquire 39 acres east of the strip to lock in circuit design and create capacity for the pit and paddock, among other hospitality and race support venues. I expect that transaction will close in the second quarter, and the purchase price was $240 million today. which will be funded by cash on hand at the Formula One group level. We announced numerous commercial announcements, including on the media rights side, an extension with Foxtel Group in Australia and Canal Plus in France. Sponsorship is off to an exciting start this year with several new deals, including two new global partners, MSC and Salesforce. And we look forward to more announcements as the year progresses. We also look forward to seeing some of you this weekend in Miami. Turning to Braves. We started the season with a week-long World Series champion celebration, including delivering World Championships rings to the players. We've completed less than 20% of the season. It's a long way to go, and last season showed how far things can change over these 162 games. We are hovering at around the same record as last year, and we all know how that turned out. At least we did manage a split with the Mets over the last couple of days. We are excited about our roster. We signed first baseman Matt Olson, a 27-year-old Atlanta native. We strengthened the bullpen with Jansen's addition. And we're thrilled to welcome Ronald Acuna Jr. back in the lineup this week. While it's still early in the season, financial performance has already been incredible. Going into the season, we had the highest season ticket sales in more than two decades. We sold out all of our multi-year premium seats for the first time ever and opened our renovated Delta Club. and retail and concession sales have been strong for the first few homestands, including selling out most of our gold program jerseys. As you undoubtedly know, a new CBA was signed in March. There'll be minimal impact from the late start since the lost games were away games, and we still expect a full 162-game season. In January, we also completed the sale of three minor league teams. And in final exciting news, we brazed debuted the Digital Truist Park in April for future Metaverse fan opportunity engagement. Turning briefly to LMAC, nothing to report today. Obviously, we'll announce when we have something, but I would note the environment, which is very difficult, as many of you know, I think does favor us, and we continue to look at some interesting opportunities. And with that, I'll turn it over to Brian for more on our financial results.