Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp.

Good morning. Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp Fiscal 2024 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Earnings Conference Call. I would now like to turn the call over to Ari Daines, Senior, Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasury. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to MST Entertainment's Fiscal 2024 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Earnings Conference Call. On today's call, Mike Groh, our EVP and Chief Financial Officer, will provide an update on the company's operations and review our financial results for the quarter. After our prepared remarks, we will open up the call for questions. If you do not have a copy of today's earnings release, it is available in the investor section of our corporate website. Please take note of the following. Today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements. Please refer to the company's filings with the SEC for a discussion of risks and uncertainties. The company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements that may be discussed during this call. On pages four and five of today's earnings release, we provide consolidated statements of operations and a reconciliation of operating income to adjusted operating income, or AOI, a non-GAAP financial measure. And with that, I'll now turn the call over to Mike.

Thank you, Ari, and good morning, everyone. Fiscal 2024 marked our first full year as a standalone live entertainment company, with our results reflecting strong performance across our businesses, including bookings, the Christmas spectacular production, and our premium hospitality offerings. In fact, the positive operating momentum we experienced throughout fiscal 24 led us to increase our guidance twice during the year. And with revenues of $959 million, and adjusted operating income of $211.5 million, our full year results came in above the high end of our ranges. As we look ahead to fiscal 25, we remain focused on executing on our strategy of increasing venue utilization, growing per event profitability, building on the success of the Christmas Spectacular, and expanding our sponsorship and premium hospitality businesses. We believe that this strategy along with robust ongoing demand for our live entertainment offerings, positions us to deliver a high single to low double-digit percentage increase in adjusted operating income in fiscal 25. So with a strong year behind us and a positive outlook for the year ahead, we remain confident that our business is well positioned to generate long-term value for our shareholders. Let's now review some key operational highlights from our fiscal fourth quarter and full year. Fiscal 2024 was another busy year of events for our venues, as we hosted approximately 6.3 million guests at over 960 live events. The majority of these events were driven by our bookings business, where we saw robust growth in the number of events held at our venues versus the prior year. This growth was driven by the concert and family show categories and included a record high for the number of concerts in a year at both the Garden and at Radio City Music Hall. The world's most famous arena ended the year on a particularly strong note with robust year over year growth in the number of concerts in the fourth quarter. This reflects our efforts to increase venue utilization within the Nixon Rangers playoff window, as well as our success in attracting acts that are headlining the garden for the first time. Consumer demand also helped drive this growth as customers continue to demonstrate their willingness to spend on experiences across our venues. the majority of concerts were once again sold out in the fourth quarter. We also saw higher overall per-cap spending on food, beverage, and merchandise at concerts in the fourth quarter as compared to the prior year period. Looking ahead, our bookings calendar continues to fill up, and we expect to again increase the number of events at our venues in fiscal 25, primarily driven by growth in concerts, family shows, and special events. Turning now to the Christmas Spectacular production. During fiscal 24, we sold over 1 million tickets across 193 performances and generated nearly $150 million in revenue, a new record for the beloved production in its 90th season. We are currently on sale with 197 shows for the 2024 holiday season and expect revenue growth for the production to be driven by the increased number of shows as well as by higher per-show revenue. This year's production will feature new technology and immersive elements as we continue to explore ways to enhance the experience for our guests. In our fiscal fourth quarter, both the Knicks and Rangers finished their exciting regular season and playoff runs. In total, they played 11 additional home games at the Garden as compared to the prior year quarter. In terms of our agreements with MSG Sports, For fiscal 25, the cash component of the arena license fees that we receive will be approximately $44 million and will continue to grow 3% each year through fiscal 2055. Given the strong performance of both teams this past season, we expect to see positive tailwinds across our revenue and profit-sharing arrangements with MSG Sports in fiscal 25. That includes our share of food, beverage, and merchandise, sweets, and signage at Nixon Rangers home games. Turning to our marketing partnerships business. As you know, last year we transitioned our sponsorship sales effort to Oak View Group's Crown Properties Collection. I'm pleased to say that we are off to a strong start to fiscal 25 in terms of new deals. We expect to have more to share in the coming weeks and believe this business is positioned for growth this year. During fiscal 24, We saw strong demand for our premium hospitality offerings, including the two new suite products we introduced earlier in the fiscal year, an event level suite and a luxury event level club space. And given this demand, we are continuing to expand the capacity of the event level club space. Along those lines, we are also in the process of renovating a number of our event and Lexus level suites, which we anticipate will drive incremental revenue this year. So as we look to fiscal 25, I'm pleased to say we expect another year of growth in this area of our business as well. Before I discuss our fiscal fourth quarter financial results, I have a couple of points regarding presentation and comparability. First, I'd like to remind you that last quarter we revised our definition of adjusted operating income as it relates to the arena license fees with MSG Sports. We are no longer removing the non-cash portion of the arena license fees in our reconciliation of operating income to adjusted operating income, which is reflected in the financial results we reported today for all periods presented. You may recall that the ARENA license fees are recognized on a straight-line basis over the life of the 35-year agreements, which equates to approximately $68 million a year. For fiscal 2024, this $68 million was comprised of approximately $43 million of cash revenue and $25 million of non-cash revenue. Second, the company completed its spinoff from Sphere Entertainment on April 20th of last year. As a result, our fiscal fourth quarter results are not fully comparable on a year-over-year basis. Results for the prior year quarter are based on carve-out accounting for the first 20 days of April, and therefore, last year's fourth quarter results do not reflect all of the SG&A expenses we would have incurred had we been a standalone public company for the entire period. Turning now to our financial results. For the fiscal 2024 fourth quarter, we reported revenues of $186.1 million, an increase of 26% as compared to the prior year period. This reflected growth across our three revenue categories, entertainment offerings, food, beverage, and merchandise, and arena license fees. The increase in revenues from entertainment offerings primarily reflected more concerts at the Garden in our fourth quarter compared to the prior year period. The increase in food, beverage, and merchandise revenues primarily reflected the impact of additional Nixon Ranger games at the Garden versus the prior year quarter, as well as higher sales at concerts and other live entertainment and sporting events at our venues. Fourth quarter adjusted operating income of $13.1 million increased by $12.4 million as compared to the prior year quarter. These AOI results include $2.5 million of non-cash arena license fees in the current year quarter as compared to $1.5 million in the prior year period. The increase in AOI primarily reflects higher revenues, partially offset by an increase in direct operating expenses and, to a lesser extent, higher SG&A expenses. And as I mentioned earlier, fourth quarter SG&A expenses are not fully comparable on a year-over-year basis. Turning to our balance sheet. As of June 30th, we had approximately $33 million of unrestricted cash, while our debt balance was approximately $626 million. Looking ahead to fiscal 25, we currently expect our company to have another year of substantial free cash flow generation. This is underscored by the following expectations. a high single to low double-digit percentage increase in adjusted operating income, ongoing net interest payments related to our national properties debt, which totaled $51 million in fiscal 24, our current status as a minimal cash taxpayer, and capital expenditures, which will include both maintenance capex as well as some incremental spend related to Christmas spectacular enhancements and suite renovations at the garden, both of which I discussed earlier. In terms of capital allocation, we remain focused on our dual priorities of opportunistically returning capital to shareholders and paying down debt. As a reminder, we continue to have approximately $110 million remaining under our current share repurchase authorization. In summary, fiscal 2024 reflected the strength of our business and the robust demand we saw for our assets. And as we look to fiscal 25, We believe we are well positioned to deliver robust AOI growth for the year. With that, I will now turn the call back over to Ari.

Thank you, Mike. Operator, can we open up the call for questions?

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 in your telephone keypad to raise your hand and join the queue. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star 1 again. Your first question comes from the line of Peter Henderson from Bank of America. Your line is open.

Great. Thank you. Thank you for taking the question. Can you just provide us with an update on advanced ticket sales for the Christmas Spectacular and just also discuss the overall growth opportunities for the production, including pricing, show count, et cetera?

So, Peter, good morning, and thanks for the question. So regarding advanced ticket sales pacing, we're currently on sale with 197 shows. That's versus 193 in last year's holiday season. And the marketing around that kicked in in late July. So it's early days. We're certainly very encouraged by what we're seeing to date. Versus this same point last year, we're up about 18% in terms of advanced ticket revenue, and I'd say that's half rate, half volume. It reflects growth across group sales, across individual sales. I'd say we're a little more than 10% of the way towards our full year goal. So again, early days, but the early signs are very encouraging. As to the second part of your question around growth opportunities, I mean, you know, we talk about growth for the Christmas show really in three areas, and I think we see opportunity in all three of them. In terms of show count, we are growing the shows from 193 to 197. We certainly have room around the edges to add more shows depending on demand. You may recall we did do that last year. and we're certainly not at a peak show volume relative to years past. So we have opportunity in show count. Pricing, we are seeing better ticket yields this year than we've seen in the prior year, but we remain a healthy discount to what I'd call comparable entertainment options on Broadway on average. We've been very successful with dynamic pricing, and so I think there's opportunity on ticket yield. And then in terms of sell-through, last year our sell-through for the show was right around 90%. That was up from, call it, mid-80s in the year prior, but still down from peak seasons in the past. We've had seasons with sell-through above that, and that includes seasons with considerably more show volume. So I think over the longer haul and even for the current season, we could see growth across any and all of these venues, any or all of these factors called show count, pricing, or sell-through. Great. Thank you.

Your next question comes from a line of Stephen Lasek from Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

Hey, great. Thanks for taking the questions. First on margins from Mike, could you talk about what you see as the biggest drivers of margin expansion ahead for your business and maybe the extent to which you think we could see some of that operating leverage flow through in 2025? And then on the postseason, would you be able to unpack just how much of a benefit you saw from the Nixon Rangers postseason runs this quarter and how we should think about any momentum that you called out, I think, in the prepared remarks on what that could mean for 2025? Thank you.

Sure, Steven. Thanks for the question. In terms of margin, we certainly do anticipate some growth in AOI margins in 25. We've talked about the high single to low double-digit percentage growth in AOI overall. Some of that will be fueled by margin expansion. And over the long haul, I think we see additional opportunities around margin expansion. There are a couple puts and takes on this that I'd lay out up front. One, in the bookings business, you know, there is a mix between rentals and promotions. For promotions, we will book all the ticket revenue as well as the artist costs. Whereas in a straight rental, that falls to the promoter and we just book the straight rent. The AOI for these events tends to be roughly the same, all else being equal, but the margin on a rental will be better than the margin on a promotion. So there's an element to that. And then I would mention as well, we have a little bit of a headwind around the corporate rent, which we've called out in the past. The comps year over year based on our new office lease will create incremental SG&A expenses, more so in the first half of the year as we start to anniversary that in the back half of the year. Despite that, we definitely see margin expansion in fiscal 25 and beyond. You know, if you think about our revenue streams, bookings, the Christmas show, premium marketing partnerships, these are all high margin revenue streams. And we see growth in all of these revenue streams in the coming year. And so I think that will create some margin expansion. And then equally important, our overhead and infrastructure, you know, we think is adequate to support this growth and more growth going forward. In fact, in our recent budget process, we – you had a real concentrated effort on efficiency. We turned over a lot of rocks and identified some cost reduction opportunities. We've started to execute on some of those, and I think there's probably more fruit to bear in the future around that. So all of these factors should drive margin expansion in fiscal 25 and beyond. In terms of your second question around the playoffs, listen, the playoff games are certainly beneficial to us. I'll remind you, you know, we, we advertise or mean a license fees across regular season home games. So there's really nothing incremental in terms of arena license fees attaching to playoff games. But we do have shared revenue streams with MSG Sports around food and beverage, around merchandise, around single event suite revenues. In fact, the food and beverage revenues from the playoff games was probably the largest driver of the overall increase you saw in food and beverage revenues in the fourth quarter year over year. So the playoff games are very profitable on a standalone basis. The other point I would make is it's pretty much all incremental. We've had a lot of success in booking concerts in playoff windows, so we're not preempting other events in that regard. You may have noted, I think we spoke about in our scripted comments, in the fourth quarter, the arena concerts were up double-digit percentages versus the prior year, despite extended playoff runs from both the Knicks and the Rangers. So this is all incremental profitability from these playoff games. To your last point, listen, it's harder to quantify, but I definitely do think the success of the Knicks and Rangers creates a certain tailwind or momentum into fiscal 25 for the teams, and we'll benefit from that by extension, again, to those same shared revenue streams.

That's great. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Cameron Manson-Perum from Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Thanks. Morning. Two, if I can. First, on the booking business, could you just give us some additional color on how booking activity is pacing for Michael Leccese, Fiscal 25 and and how we should think about that in terms of the visibility, you have sitting here today and then. Michael Leccese, Second on venue utilization you call out improvement in the earnings presentation, could you just elaborate on that opportunity, you know how much runway for improvement, do you see and. As we look across the venue portfolio, you know, where or which venues do you see more or less opportunity to really push forward on the utilization front? Thanks.

Sure, Cameron, and thank you for the questions. In terms of pacings of bookings, we're basically booking, I would say we're pacing kind of flat to prior year at the same time. It's just one of the ways that we look at this. We do have a little bit of a tough comp this year relative to Billy Joel, who, as we know, ended his residency. So we're going from 12 shows to one show fiscal year over fiscal year. Despite that, again, we are pacing essentially flat versus where we were at the same time last year. If I zoom in on the Garden, which is the biggest driver here, for the first quarter, we do expect to be up modestly versus the prior year in terms of number of events. That is against a tough comp. Last summer had some residencies from Fish and Dave Chappelle, as well as three Billy Joel shows compared to one this year. Despite that, I think we will host a couple more events this year in the first quarter than we did last year. For the next two quarters, second quarter and third quarter, we are on pace again with last year in terms of number of events booked at this time. And then the fourth quarter, we're probably slightly behind, but we do have a pretty strong pipeline. We're confident that we can fill that gap. So we're in pretty good shape. I would say this. We're coming off a record year. We talked about a record number of concerts at the Garden and at Radio City in fiscal 24. Despite that, we do expect to increase the number of events that we host this year across our venues, and we're very comfortable and happy with the manner in which we're pacing right now towards that goal. In terms of your second question around utilization, listen, it's a good story around utilization in the sense that utilization is very strong. We continue to improve year over year. Yet at the same time, there's plenty of opportunity for growth. We're not up against a ceiling in any respect. There's no constraints in that regard. At the Garden, we hosted 250 events. That includes the Knicks and the Rangers. When you factor in load-in and load-out days, that translates to about 70, a little north of 70% utilization, up modestly from the prior year. At the theaters, plus all the theaters, we hosted 520 events in fiscal 24, plus all the Radio City Christmas showings. So there's plenty of ample opportunity here. Right now, you know, live entertainment is a growth industry right now. And we're very well positioned, I think, to continue to capitalize that and increase utilization. I mean, we have these iconic venues. We have great relationships across the industry. We have really strong execution on our bookings team. And we've been able to, you know, have a couple different things to continue to increase utilization over year, every year over year, whether that be residencies or multi-night runs. Our marquee sports division continues to grow their reach. special events, I think, you know, is an area where we could see some increased utilization this year. We're also, we talked about already doing well during playoff runs, and I think that'll continue going forward. The track record is very strong around utilization, and there's no reason to think that that won't continue. And again, we're really not up against any ceilings at this point.

Helpful. Thank you.

Your next question comes from a line of Brandon Ross from Late Shed. Your light is open.

Hey, thanks for taking the questions. On the MSGS call, they said they were entering a very strong sponsorship year. And I guess you kind of hinted at the same in the prepared. Can you just help us understand how much is up for renewal this year and how to think about the renewal cadence for sponsorships or premium marketing opportunities going forward? Thanks.

Sure, Brandon. Thanks for the question. I'd say this is the sponsorship revenue. I mean, it is a stronger renewal year. In fiscal 25, I'm not going to get into specifics around dollars, but there are some large renewals, which always create opportunities, whether that being upselling the existing partner or perhaps bringing up the category for a different player. So that's always an opportunity for growth. I mean, taking a wider view of just sponsorship in general, we're feeling pretty bullish about it. We're one year into the partnership with Oakview Group. So I think we're able to capitalize on some of the year one learnings, as well as some of the investments that our partners made in people and infrastructure. I think we're pretty well positioned right now. I mean, between the success of the Knicks and the Rangers, the success we've had and how many concerts we're showing at the Garden, MSG is a pretty desirable partner right now for those who are looking to spend some money in this area. You know, both the access to tickets and to premium, the quality of the events we're hosting, as well as just the general cachet at the Garden, which probably has never been higher. We're actually anecdotally even seeing a couple partners approach us to kind of proactively early renew arrangements that are expiring, you know, in the future. So I think that we're off to a real good start. I don't have anything specific to offer, but we're hoping to be able to have something specific around that in the not-too-distant future. But all signs are pointing north in this regard, and I think we'll probably have a strong year in this arena.

Great. And then just following up on the guide, you gave high singles to low doubles on AOI. Can you just tell us how to think about that in terms of the revenue for this year?

Sure. I mean, listen, I think the demand, as I mentioned, I think right now live experiences or the demand for shared experiences is very strong, and so we'll continue to ride that wave. We are not providing explicit revenue guidance for 25, but we do expect to see broad-based revenue growth, and that will be a driver, certainly, towards the high single to low double-digit percentage increase in AOI that we are guiding towards. I mean, I can break it down by pieces. If we talk about our bookings business, talked about already coming off a record year and expecting to increase the number of events across our bookings business this year. I will reiterate again the difference in the accounting around promotions and rentals, and I mentioned this Billy Joel deal was a promoted deal, and so we booked the ticket revenue and the artist costs. Those will more likely than not be replaced by straight rentals, so that creates a little bit of a revenue headwind, but does not translate to profitability, as I discussed earlier. But outside of that, just the sheer growth in number of events should fuel revenue growth in the bookings business. Christmas spectacularly, we spoke to a little bit already, still early, but seeing an 18% increase in advanced ticket sales versus the same point last year. We continue to project the continued return of tourism to New York City, higher average per show revenues. So we see revenue growth in the Christmas show. Premiums, talked about this a little bit in our prepared comments. We are expanding the event level club space that we added just last year to meet current demand. We're renovating a number of our events and Lexus level suites, which also drives incremental revenue. Talked about the tailwind around the Knicks and the Rangers success and our success in launching concerts, which will drive demand for premium products. So we're expecting to deliver another year of growth across premium hospitality business. And then I talked about the sponsorship business in response to your first question. And then lastly, just those shared revenue streams with the Knicks and Rangers should also be positioned for growth given the success that those teams have had. So we're looking at broad-based growth across really all of our different revenue streams as we go into fiscal 25.

Thank you for all that color.

Your next question comes from the line of David Karnaus from JP Morgan. Your line is open.

All right. Thank you. Just first, given the kind of volatile macro environment, I figured it's worth asking if you've seen any signs of consumer weakening either in current or forward bookings or in your per caps and then separately on capital allocation. Any update there and how you're thinking about the right conditions potentially for resuming a buyback? Thanks.

Sure, David. Thank you for the questions. So listen, the slowdown in consumer demand, we're very aware that that narrative is out there, but we're not seeing it at all. And I know some of our peer companies confronted the same question and pretty similar responses. I don't see a slowdown in consumer demand for live entertainment experiences, most specifically. You know, we talked about the Radio City Christmas show and the the growth we're seeing in advanced sales there, which I think speaks for itself. In terms of bookings, we look at sell-through year-over-year. If I look at year-over-year sell-through in the fourth quarter, in the first quarter, versus the same time last year, of course, all of our different venues, in almost every instance, we're either on par or better, and that's against some really tough comps. I mean, look at fourth quarter overall, how sell-through was approaching, or just a little north, in fact, of 90%. So we're not seeing any lagging in consumer demand around bookings. We actually, you know, we have certain acts that will add shows after selling out the initially announced shows. You cited the per caps in your question. We're seeing higher per cap spending in the fourth quarter. We were up actually double digits in terms of combined per cap spending across food, beverage, and merchandise at our concerts. So to date, we've not seen anything approaching a slowdown in consumer demand. We're very mindful of it, but really everything's been pretty bullish so far. I would say I think we're positioned well to the extent there was a slowdown. terms of resiliency in the New York marketplace and with the iconic menus that we have but to date we're not even seeing anything along those lines in terms of your second question around capital allocation you know we've talked historically and really not changing today about the dual priorities around opportunistically returning capital shareholders and debt pay down just to set the stage we ended the year with about 33 million of unrestricted cash we do expect to generate substantial free cash flow in fiscal 25 Our seasonally busiest quarters are in the fiscal and second and third quarters, so that's when I would anticipate the cash to start to build up to levels where we have to address this question a little more contemporaneously. And once we get to that point, we'll evaluate returning capital to shareholders. We have bought back $140 million, or about 10% of our Class A shares, since becoming a standalone public company. And to reiterate what we said in our prepared comments, we do have about $110 million of capacity left, what we have currently approved around share buybacks. With respect to debt pay down, the current expectation is we'll continue, of course, our mandatory quarterly principal payments on our debt, which is about $4 million per quarter. But I think the business should naturally de-lever based on our expectations of AOI growth in the years ahead. So we're well positioned to continue to advance on both debt pay down and share repurchases. The other thing I shouldn't shortchange, you know, just reinvestment in the business. We don't have any current plans for anything substantial in this regard. There's no M&A on the horizon. There's no major renovations that are needed at our venues. We will do some things around the edges, and we talked about most of this already. Really, I think, smaller but really smart and high-return capital investments, talking about expanding the event-level club space at the Garden that we introduced last year, renovation of some of the event Lexus-level suites, and investments in the Christmas Spectacular to enhance the guest experience. These are all very smart and high ROI opportunities that we will take advantage of as well. Thank you.

Operator, we have time for one last caller.

Certainly. Your final question comes from a line of Peter Cepino from Wolf Research. Your line is open.

Hi. Good morning. I wanted to follow up on a prior question about 2025 revenue and dig into the event growth next year and specifically how you see the mix changing between concerts or theaters versus the garden. If you could just help us think about those trends and what they might mean for margins in 2025. Thank you.

Sure, Peter, and thank you for the question. When we talk about events, we kind of look at it across a couple of categories. We talk about it in terms of concerts, family shows, special events, and then marquee sports, which is what we internally use for any of the sporting events beyond the Knicks and Rangers. For concerts, we do expect event growth this year against our record-setting year in fiscal 24. We've had some success in kind of introducing new acts, or really I'd call it marching new acts up the ladder the point where they're ready to play the arena. And we have introduced some new acts to arena level shows with success. We've had some success around multi-night runs. I've talked a little bit about how we're pacing versus our goal this year, facing very well to increase the number of concerts. So I think we're well positioned there. In terms of the family show category, we recently announced 64 Annie holiday shows at the theater, at MSG and Chicago Theater. That really gets us about 75% plus of our way towards our annual goal for family shows, and even more than that in terms of a profitability perspective. I mentioned anecdotally as well, we're welcoming back the Westminster Dog Show to the Garden. I think we last hosted that in February of 20, just before the pandemic. So we're excited to renew that partnership with them. Special events. Look, a lot of that business takes place in the fiscal fourth quarter. It's a little early here. We are seeing some traction, some encouraging things, and would hope to have something to announce along those lines, uh, in the not too distant future. And then in marquee sports, you know, we'll continue to do a lot of business in college sports. We have great relationships with St. John's with the big East. I think we just announced Duke versus Illinois at the garden, which is certainly a high profile game. And then some of the other sports that, that, uh, some of the other events that that group books around boxing, the darts championship, the bull riding, all of those events we would anticipate returning and looking to explore really expanding the range of events in that category. So look, each one of those categories, as we look at it, we think we're positioned to be able to grow the event count in fiscal 25 versus a very, very strong year in fiscal 24. Thanks so much.

That concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Ari Daines for closing remarks.

Thank you all for joining us. We look forward to speaking with you on our next earnings call. Have a good day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.