Endeavor Group Holdings, Inc.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to the Endeavor Group full year and fourth quarter 2021 results conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, again press star one. Thank you. James Marsh, Head of Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

Good afternoon, and welcome to Endeavor's fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings call. A short while ago, we issued a press release, which you can view on our investor relations website, investor.endeavorco.com. A recording of this call will also be available via that site for at least 30 days. Today, you'll hear from Endeavor's CEO, Ariel Emanuel, and CFO, Jason Lublin, before we open for questions. The purpose of the call is to provide you with the information regarding our fourth quarter and full year 2021 performance, in addition to our initial outlook for 2022. I do want to remind everyone that the information discussed will include forward-looking statements and or projections that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions, as described in the risk factor section of our filings with the SEC, including our 10Qs and 10K. If these risks or uncertainties ever materialize, or any assumptions prove incorrect. Our results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements and projections. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and we undertake no obligation to update them publicly in light of new information or future events, except as legally required. Our commentary today will also include non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide an additional tool for investors to use in evaluating ongoing operating results and trends. These measures should not be considered in isolation from or as a substitute for financial information prepared in accordance with GAAP. Reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP metrics for our reported results can be found in our press release issued today as well as on our IR site. With that, I'll hand it over to Ari.

Thanks, James. As we come up on our first year anniversary as a public company, We feel great about our overall performance and our continued ability to execute on our long-term strategy and deliver sustained growth. The secular tailwinds we laid out a year ago have never been stronger. From premium content and media rights to sports betting to live events and experience, the demand continues to grow. We believe there is no better company than Endeavor to continue capitalizing on this demand and that our results in 2021 illustrate that. We beat our targets and raised our guidance in both the second and third quarters of last year, and we continue to outperform in the final quarter and full year of 2021 while we still face the lingering impact of the pandemic. Briefly looking back at the year, in our own sports property segment, UFC posted its best financial year in its 28-year history. All pay-per-view events sold out, sponsorship hit, record revenue highs, and international rights deals saw significant increases. Within our representation segment, our talent agency, William Morris, continued its strong growth, returning to pre-pandemic 2019 levels across categories such as television, film, books, and podcasts. In our events, experience, and rights segment, our IMG Arena sports betting business saw sales surpass pre-pandemic levels. And with our expected acquisition of OpenBet later this year, we'll look to further expand and evolve our sports betting offering for rights holders and sports folks while creating a new operating segment for this business. IMG Arena and OpenBet have been profitable individual businesses, and we expect that together we will be able to achieve meaningful revenue synergies and continue their profitability. Within our on-location experiential business, we added the IOC and Olympic Games to our client roster and have begun preparations for our first games in Paris in 2024 to be followed by Milan in 2026 and LA in 2028. And finally, across our ING-owned events roster, Attendance increased significantly as COVID-19 restrictions were lifted. We also witnessed a substantial increase in both sponsorship sales and corporate hospitality tied to those events outpacing pre-pandemic levels. As we look back at this success, I wanted to take a couple minutes to remind you of the unique position Endeavor occupied at the center of sports and entertainment and how that enables us to capitalize on a wide range of secular trends. I also want to share with you my view on what this means for Endeavor going forward. We've diligently built what we believe is a well-balanced and deeply interconnected portfolio of clients and owned assets across sports and entertainment. Two of our longest running businesses, William Morris and IMG, provide us with invaluable insights that fuel strategic business decisions across the portfolio. William Morris gives us insight into trends coming down the pike in media and entertainment. For example, based on our agency's position in the marketplace and the evolving content landscape, five years ago, we saw an opportunity to create an artist-friendly independent studio endeavor content. We closed our sale of 80% of the scripted portion of that business earlier this year. And I believe there is no better indicator of the value being placed on premium content than that deal, which valued Endeavor content at nearly a billion dollars on a post-money basis. Meanwhile, through IMG Media Business, we represent more than 150 sports rights holders on a global basis. giving us a unique and expansive perspective on the evolving sports rights landscape. That perspective informed past decisions to acquire both the UFC and PBR after representing them for years. It also enabled us to consistently create compliments to our live sports viewing experience, whether that's our Sport 24 in-flight streaming channel or IMG Arena sports betting operations. and these media-driven insights further informed our decision to pursue the acquisition of OpenBed. Beyond the insights generated across our portfolio, Endeavor also benefits from being distribution agnostic. As the content landscape continues to shift, the one constant is the ever-increasing demand for sports and entertainment content. Whether there is expansion or consolidation of linear broadcasting, cable companies or . The need for content remains at an all-time high. We will continue to benefit based on our ability to readily fulfill that demand. And we have seen that both our global scale and our volume of deals has allowed us to command maximum value on behalf of our own and represented IP. As the definition of content continues to expand beyond traditional verticals like film and television, to include everything from podcasts, social media posts, to NFTs. This only presents more opportunity for our clients and our own assets going forward. No matter what form of content takes, we will be there at every step of the way as we have for decades, relying on the unique makeup of our portfolio, our deep capabilities, and the insights we're able to generate based on our global footprint. That powerful combination enables us to not only withstand the evolution of our industry, but also to thrive in the face of it. Because we are both platform agnostic and well diversified in terms of our volume of businesses and our global footprint, our exposure to segment or regional downturn is limited. I remain confident in saying that we are ideally positioned to benefit from the secular tailwind I mentioned earlier, for the months and years ahead. As we head into our second year as a public company, we continue to face several external factors outside our control. But we believe in the strength of our diversified business and the durability of the long-term strategy we've laid out. Looking to the future, you'll see us continue as first movers, identifying and leveraging trends making one-of-a-kind connections across the Endeavor ecosystem of talent, brands, owned IP, and carving out new paths for growth. With that, I'll hand it over to Jason to talk more about the fourth quarter and the full year 2021, as well as our outlook for 2022.