Sphere Entertainment Co.

Good morning and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Sphere Entertainment Company Fiscal 2025 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. I would now like to turn the call over to Ari Daines, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning and welcome to Sphere Entertainment's Fiscal 2025 First Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Today's call will begin with our Executive Chairman and CEO, Jim Dolan, who will provide an update on Sphere. Dave Burns, our Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Treasurer, will then review our financial results for the period. 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 Investors 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 five and six 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 Jim.

Thank you, Ari. Good morning, everyone. When we opened Sphere a little more than a year ago, Our goal was to redefine the live entertainment experience. We started that journey in Las Vegas and have made headway improving our sphere's innovative business model. From the beginning, our vision also included a global network of venues. In October, we took an important step forward when we announced plans to bring the world's second sphere to Abu Dhabi. an international capital that welcomed more than 24 million visitors last year. The Abu Dhabi venue is expected to be similar in scale to Sphere in Las Vegas. And under the terms of our partnership, the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi will fully fund its construction. We will receive a franchise initiation fee, which grants them the right to build the venue using our intellectual property. In addition, our team plans to provide both pre- and post-opening services that leverage our expertise and infrastructure. And as part of a multi-year marketing partnership, the Experience Abu Dhabi brand is now an official partner of Sphere in Las Vegas. This is a significant milestone in expanding Sphere's global footprint, and we look forward to sharing more details as we move forward. Turning back to Sphere in Las Vegas, We remain focused on optimizing our operating model to maximize revenue while enhancing the guest experience. To that end, we continue to refine our strategy for the SPHERE experience, including show count and pricing. In September, we debuted our second original production, VU2, an immersive concert experience. VU2 joins Postcards from Earth in our expanding library of experiential content. We are actively developing future productions and look forward to introducing new experiences to audiences in 2025. Beyond original content, strong consumer demand continues to drive concerts and events at Sphere. This past quarter, we hosted the UFC, which became our highest grossing single event so far. The Eagles recently extended their multi-month run again with new dates into March, and next week, we welcome back Formula One and the Las Vegas Grand Prix as part of our multi-year agreement. As we have said, running multiple event types on the same day is a focus of ours. We have started showing this beer experience on the same day as residencies, and we plan to run it during the upcoming F1 event and throughout Anima's multi-day run, which begins around New Year's Eve. In addition, Sphere continues to gain traction as a platform for corporate partners. In June, we hosted our first keynote event with Hewlett Packard, and we recently announced that Delta Airlines will present at Sphere during the Consumer Electronics Show in January. In terms of sponsorships, in October, we announced Verizon as the official mobile wireless partner of Sphere. We also recently signed a multi-year marketing partnership with Ticketmaster. These partners, along with the experienced Abu Dhabi, will be integrated across various marketing assets, including the exosphere. So with a year of operations under our belt and a second sphere location now announced, we are moving in the right direction and remain confident in the long-term outlook for this next generation medium. With that, I will turn the call over to Dave.