WWE Is Having Its Best Day In Over A Year. Could More Upside Be On The Way This Summer?

Shares of World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. WWE rose more than 18 percent on Thursday. Before the market opened, the company reported earnings of $0.07 per share on revenue of $150.2 million, compared to the Street estimate that called for a net loss of ($0.02) on revenue of $148.7 million.

WWE Network’s paid subscribers surged 31 percent quarter-over-quarter and 75 percent year-over-year, averaging more than 1.2 million paid subscribers.

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Cagesideseats, a popular wrestling website under the SB Nation umbrella, noted that:

“Having those kinds of numbers in the three-month period after WrestleMania [which took place in Q1] will be seen as a big win on Wall Street, since the Network's ability to keep paying subscribers once they got the company's flagship event for a fraction of its pay-per-view (PPV) price has long been a concern. Also impressive is the news that from July 2014 - June 2015, the Network generated more revenue than PPV ever did in any 12 month period in WWE's existence.”

More Upside?

WWE will be one of the brands participating in an ad-supported video test on Facebook Inc FB, which will share revenue with content creators. The press release issued after the call assured that the company “served more than 440 million video views on Facebook during the quarter.”

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Another catalyst for WWE, specifically the Network, is SummerSlam. This year’s SummerSlam event will be held on August 23 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

SummerSlam is considered one of the company's two biggest shows of the year, along with Wrestlemania. As such, the company has increased its running time from three hours to four hours this year. This provides another opportunity to drive paid subscribers growth.

Last year, WWE saw its share price rise about $3 from the end of July through early September.