8/6/2025

speaker
Carly
Conference Coordinator

Good afternoon, all, and thank you for joining us for the second quarter of the 2025 TKO earnings call. My name is Carly, and I'll be coordinating the call today. If you'd like to register a question during the call, you can do so by pressing star-folded by 1 on your telephone keypad. To remove yourself from the line of questioning, we'll be star-folded by 2. I'd now like to hand the call over to our host, Seth Laszlo, Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations. The floor is yours.

speaker
Seth Laszlo
Senior Vice President and Head of Investor Relations

Good afternoon, and welcome to TKO's second quarter 2025 earnings call. A short while ago, we issued a press release, which you can view on our Investor Relations website. A recording of this call will also be available via our website for at least 30 days. After prepared remarks from Ari Emanuel, TKO's Executive Chair and Chief Executive Officer, and Andrew Schweimer, TKO's Chief Financial Officer, we'll open the call for questions. Mark Shapiro, our President and Chief Operating Officer, and Andrew will be handling the Q&A. The purpose of this call is to provide you with information regarding our second quarter 2025 performance. I want to remind everyone that the information discussed will include forward-looking statements and or projections that involve risks, uncertainties, and assumptions. Please see our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for further detail. If these risks or uncertainties were to materialize or any assumptions prove incorrect, our results may differ materially from those expressed or implied on this call. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and we undertake no obligation to update them 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 our 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 can be found in our press release issued today, as well as the information posted on our IR website. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Ari.

speaker
Ari Emanuel
Executive Chair and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Seth. TKO's momentum continued throughout the second quarter. reflecting strong execution of our strategy. The quarter included multiple live event milestones, enhanced event economics, and meaningful new brand partnerships. These results highlight our ability to capitalize on sustained demand for premium content and live events to drive growth, profitability, and margin expansion. As just one example, the ESPN domestic media rights deal for WWE's premium live events announced just this morning secures a pivotal recurring revenue stream for years to come. Our live sports and entertainment content has become a key differentiator for organizations, brands, and platforms in search of audience. From Netflix live events to YouTube clips and highlights, our global partnership with AB InBev to our extraordinary consumer licensing partnership with Fanatics, our strategy and our assets at TKO are truly unique. Given the continued momentum across our portfolio, and our overall business outlook, we are once again raising our guidance for the full year. I'll now share some highlights from the quarter that underscore our positive momentum. Turning first to our core UFC and WWE businesses, where live events and global partnerships continue to deliver solid performance and drive meaningful growth. At UFC, in addition to setting arena records, our live events are securing meaningful economic support from host cities. During the quarter, six out of eight live audience events were supported by incentives, including a first-ever fight night in Baku, Azerbaijan. This event, along with our recently announced Visit Qatar partnership to host a fight in Doha, highlights continued traction in our site fee strategy, including generating greater support for our fight nights from new destinations. Meanwhile, our global brand partnerships team delivered robust double-digit growth for UFC in the quarter, following recent major deals with Meta and Monster Energy. This progress continues with a recent expansion of UFC's Wingstop partnership that will include additional integrations across WWE premium live events over a multi-year period. The properties are continuing to find meaningful ways to live side by side, leveraging the collective audience and fan avidity. At WWE, On the heels of a record WrestleMania 41, which was the highest grossing event and most viewed WrestleMania in company history, Money in the Bank at Intuit Dome in Los Angeles became the highest grossing WWE arena event of all time, a record we've now broken three times over the last year. The strength of our premium live events was further on display last weekend at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, where WWE's first ever two-night SummerSlam drew more than 113,000 fans. While premium live events remain a key driver, we're seeing enhanced economics across the entire event portfolio at WWE. In the quarter, we set 36 individual market records for ticket sales and sold out 16 events. On the programming side, WWE's partnership with Netflix is showing robust appeal and growth across overall viewership and the harder to reach younger demos. Since launching on the platform in January, Raw has appeared on Netflix's list of top 10 shows every single week, that's 30 straight weeks, totaling more than 280 million view hours on the platform. Internationally, WWE's PLEs have been a consistent performer, making the top 10 list in 37 countries over the first six months of the partnership. Additionally, with last week's Netflix premiere of WWE Unreal, we are creating more opportunities for fans to engage with our ancillary content, In this instance, taking them behind the scenes and into the writer's room for the very first time. Across global brand partnerships, WWE generated remarkable growth in the quarter driven in particular by record setting deals surrounding several of our premium live events. We also renewed longstanding partners, including Slim Jim and expanded our roster in the financial services category with digital banking platform Chime. Turning next to IMG on location and PBR. IMG's global production capabilities were on full display this quarter. A singular high-impact weekend in May alone saw more than 1,000 IMG team members across three continents delivering thousands of hours of sports coverage for marquee events, including the final days of both the English Premier League and Saudi Pro League seasons, the EuroLeague Final Four in Abu Dhabi, plus 15 MLS matches. Taken together, These achievements collectively showcase IMG's unmatched scale in delivering world-class premium sports content to audiences worldwide, from screens on phones to screens on planes with Sport 24. IMG's unrivaled capabilities were again on display last month at the 153rd Open at Royal Portrush, where IMG supported our longstanding partner, the RNA, to deliver a record-breaking championship across attendance, viewership, and engagement. From international media rights and brand partnerships to world-first innovations like SpiderCam on the 18th hole, IMG helped elevate the fan experience on-site and worldwide. At On Location, fans worldwide are already gearing up for next year's Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup. As of July, one year out from the FIFA World Cup's arrival in North America, hospitality sales and reservations have already surpassed the entirety of Qatar 2022 hospitality sales. And at PBR, the 2025 Unleash the Beast and Pendleton Whiskey Velocity Tour successfully concluded in May with record regular season attendance across both tours. The focus now shifts to PBR's Camping World Team Series debuting with two additional media partners, Fox Nation and the CW Network, who joined CBS's coverage. In closing, positive trends continue across the business. and we are enthusiastic about key milestones ahead with the UFC rights renewal, TKO's promotion of the Canelo versus Crawford super fight next month, and the planned commencement of our share repurchase program in the third quarter. We remain incredibly well positioned in today's sports ecosystem due to the strong demand for our premium content and high contractual visibility. As we move through the second half of 2025, our focus is clear, execute, integrate, and deliver on our updated guidance. With that, I'll turn the call over to Andrew. Good afternoon.

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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