Sphere Entertainment Co.

Good morning and thank you for standing by and welcome to the Sphere Entertainment Co. Fiscal 2024 Second 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 2024 Second Quarter Earnings Conference Call. Today's call will begin with our Executive Chairman and CEO, Jim Dolan, who will provide an update on Sphere. This will be followed by an update from Andrea Greenberg, President and CEO of MSG Networks. And then Dave Burns, our Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, will conclude with a review of 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 and good morning everyone. As we said from the very start, the vision for SPHERE was to create a next generation medium that would disrupt the traditional venue model. Now with our first full quarter of operations in Las Vegas behind us, we can see from our results that our thesis is starting to play out. With SPHERE, we wanted to design a venue that would be busy 365 days a year with multiple events per day. During the second quarter, we sold more than 1 million tickets to over 200 events. This volume is two to three times greater than what you would typically see from the busiest arena-sized venues in the world. Our original content category, the Sphere Experience, drove this volume, grossing more than $1 million in average daily ticket sales at a high margin. While the Sphere Experience is our key economic engine, Residencies will continue to have an important place on our event calendar. High profile residencies are not only profitable, they generate awareness for SPHERE and other events at the venue. U2's sold out extended run is a great example. We've also had strong demand from advertisers who have been quick to recognize the unique value of the ExoSphere. And in November, we demonstrated what SPHERE can do for corporate partners through our collaboration with Formula One. With strong results from both events and advertising, our sphere business segment generated positive adjusted operating income for our second quarter. This is an important financial milestone, demonstrating that the sphere business model can be both profitable and self-sustaining. We know that this is just the first of many milestones to come, as we continue to build our sphere into a global entertainment and technology company. As we continue to learn more about our audience, we will refine our business model to maximize revenue opportunities. We will keep investing in technology, intellectual property, and content as we look to stay on the cutting edge of immersive experiences. Our plan is to monetize these investments not only at our Las Vegas venue, but over time across multiple platforms. This includes a network of Sphere venues around the globe. With positive worldwide reaction to Sphere, we continue to have substantive discussions about expanding to international markets. So we're pleased with our early results for Sphere in Las Vegas. However, we also believe we're only scratching the surface in terms of the global opportunity for this next generation medium. Before I turn the call over to Andrea, I'd like to welcome Jennifer Koster, who was recently named President of Sphere Business Operations. Jennifer has an extensive background of driving growth at premier technology and entertainment brands, including most recently at Google. At Sphere, she will lead the development execution of all business operations. I look forward to working with her on growing our business. I would also like to welcome Dave Burns. Dave previously served as MSG Entertainment's EVP and Chief Financial Officer and has now joined Sphere Entertainment as EVP Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer. You will hear from him a little later on. With that, I will now turn the call over to Andrea.