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Text: The purpose of the call is to provide you with information regarding our third quarter 2021 performance in addition to our financial outlook for the balance of the year.
Our commentary today will also include non-GAAP financial measures, which we believe provide an additional tool for investors to use in evaluating 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.
With that, I'll hand it over to Ari.
Continuing our positive momentum from last quarter, we once again surpassed our quarterly revenue and adjusted EBITDA targets.
Given the outperformance and our positive outlook for the balance of the year, we have also raised our full year outlook, which Jason will discuss in more detail shortly.
Before he does, I want to discuss three important things; UFC record performance year to date, the continuation of pent-up demand for entertainment, and the attractive prospects of sports betting.
UFC posted its best nine-month year-to-date period in the 28-year history in terms of revenue and adjusted EBITDA, and this despite lower event output in the third quarter versus third quarter 2020.
During the third quarter, UFC sold out all three Pay-Per-View events and UFC 264 became the third highest-grossing event in UFC history.
Gate revenues at all events were enhanced by our own VIP experience offering from our location that puts fans in the center of the action.
Meanwhile, commercial Pay-Per-View saw the highest worldwide grossing revenue quarter since the pandemic began, driven in large part by the many US restaurants and bars starting to open in full capacity.
We also saw strong performances across our consumer products and licensing and sponsorship categories.
UFC's sponsorship revenue is up 59% compared to third quarter 2019, the last non-COVID impacted year.
We're seeing similar sponsorship increases across the balance of our owned and operated sports and events portfolio.
In terms of international media rights, we've closed nine new deals throughout Asia Pacific during the period.
If you combine these nine with the prior five international rights deals we discussed last quarter, the aggregate average annual value is more than 80% over the prior deals.
Beyond UFC, our businesses continue to benefit from the pent-up demand for entertainment created by the pandemic.
While reopening rates continue to vary geographically, we are seeing increased activity across all lines of our business.
Linear and digital platforms are in a race for more content, creating an uptick in television and film productions.
And we have room for more optimism as Broadway recently reopened and music artists commencing multi-year tours in large venues.
On the sports side, fans are filling stadiums and sponsors are eager to spend dollars to reach those fans and make up for lost time.
If you look at Super Bowl 56, ticket sales from our location, they are pacing meaningfully ahead of 2019 sales for Super Bowl 54.
The average ticket price is up over 50% on a like-for-like basis.
Now turning to sports betting, a fast-growing complement to sports media rights and live events.
The combination of the pandemic's role as a catalyst for online sports betting, the increased betting legalization among US states, and the opening of new territories globally has laid the foundation for further growth of our IMG Arena and soon to include OpenBet sports betting business.
As it currently stands, IMG Arena is part of our events, experiences, and rights segment, upon closing of our OpenBet acquisition, which we announced at the end of the third quarter, and which is expected to close in the first half of '22.
IMG Arena and OpenBet will combine to form a fourth operating segment.
This will create greater transparency and enable us to better focus on this growing business.
IMG Arena is already a major global player in the sports betting market, serving more than 470 sportsbook brands by supplying data and video feeds from rights holders including PGA Tour, UFC, ATP, and MLS.
Layering in OpenBet's betting engine, which processed nearly 3 billion bets in 2020, and its modular suite of content offerings with IMG Arena's feeds and virtual products will create a unique end-to-end solution for sportsbooks and rights holders.
It's a fully integrated tech solution combined with a fan-first approach to content, a complete turnkey solution that we can take to existing rights holders within our broader media business is also making us more attractive to prospective clients.
We expect this integrated offering will help rights holders drive increased fan engagement and new modernization opportunities in turn increasing the sports betting handle.
As I mentioned, while we don't anticipate the acquisition to close until sometime in the first half of 2022, we've already received a high level of interest from sportsbooks and rights holders around the combined entity.
And we are extremely encouraged by the growth opportunity ahead.
Before we get to our revised guidance, I'll start by walking you through our financial results for the quarter and providing you with some additional color around what we're seeing in each of our segments.
Any comparisons I give will be in reference to last year, which was impacted by COVID.
For the quarter ended September 30, 2021, we generated approximately 1.4 billion in consolidated revenue, up 526.8 million or 60.9% over the prior-year period.
Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was approximately 283.3 million, up 105 million or 58.9%.
Our own sports property segment generated revenue of 288.5 million in the quarter.
The segment is down 10.6 million in revenue in comparison to the prior-year quarter.
This is attributable in part to a 25 million contract termination fee recognized in the third quarter of 2020 that did not recur in 2021.
It is also due to more events being held in Q3 2020 as a result of events shifting from Q2 due to COVID-19.
The revenue decline was partially offset by UFC's continued strong growth across live events, residential and commercial Pay-Per-View, consumer products, licensing, and sponsorship, as well as additional PBR events held in the quarter.
The segment's adjusted EBITDA was 134.7 million.
UFC posted its best nine-month year-to-date period in history in terms of revenue and adjusted EBITDA.
Outside of its strong live event and Pay-Per-View performance, we signed several new licensing and sponsorship deals.
These included a partnership with Icon Meals, a healthy ready-made meals company, and multi-year sponsorships with Battle Motors and ZipRecruiter.
Internationally, as Ari mentioned, we also secured nine new media rights deals in Asia Pacific, significantly increasing our distribution throughout the region.
Meanwhile, live events on ESPN and ESPN+ continue to perform well with viewership across platforms.
The Return of The Ultimate Fighter also approved the tremendous success.
Viewership on ESPN+ indicates the season performed better than the last three seasons that aired on FOX Sports 1.
On the fan engagement front, where UFC continues to have one of the most engaged follower bases among all major US sports, social followers grew over 40% and YouTube subscribers grew over 30% year over year.
Lastly in this segment, PBR also continued its positive momentum, taking us right past streaming service to Pluto TV, bringing its linear and streaming content all under the ViacomCBS umbrella.
The company also signed several new national partnerships and licensing deals in the quarter and launched its first NFTs last month.
Now turning to events, experiences, and rights.
This segment recorded revenue of 446.3 3 million, an increase of 62.1 million or 16.2% year over year.
The increase was primarily driven by greater events and production revenue attributable to the return of live events in 2021, as well as the addition of the recently acquired NCSA.
This was partially offset by a decrease in media rights revenues, primarily due to the return to a normal schedule of European soccer matches in the quarter and the expiration of two European soccer contracts in the second quarter of 2021.
Adjusted EBITDA improved 94.6 million to 85 million compared to the third quarter of 2020.
This was primarily driven by the growth in revenue and a decrease in direct operating costs.
To give you a little color on the activity we're seeing in this segment, there were several major sporting events during the quarter in which the Endeavor flywheel was on full display.
The first was Wimbledon, a relationship that dates back over 50 years.
IMG produced the events' official TV and radio channels, showed the tournament in flight on its Sport 24 channel, secured 80% of its official partnerships and brokered a deal to launch a commemorative NFT.
At The Open Golf Championship, IMG served as a host broadcaster and the official commercial representative for the event showed the event on Sport 24 and ran hospitality.
Meanwhile, our experiential marketing agency 160over90 created the tournament's Spectator Village.
And lastly, at September's Ryder Cup, our location handled all consumer travel and ticket exchange program for the event, while 160over90 operated consumer experiences and hospitality programs across the event footprint.
IMG Arena packaged and delivered all official event data for sportsbook operators via its Golf Event Center and Sport 24 carried the event in flight.
Meanwhile, dozens of clients competed across all three events including Novak Djokovic, who played the men's single title at Wimbledon, while Patrick Cantlay and Jordan Spieth helped power the US to win at the Ryder Cup.
Across the rest of our event portfolio, we held one of the largest New York Fashion Week ever and several of our European festivals hit milestones.
The big [Inaudible] celebrated its 10th anniversary with 50,000 attendees.
And Taste of Paris saw record 32,000 guests attend the biggest food festival in France.
And lastly, Frieze London returned with its first in-person event since 2019.
We saw most productions and touring events come to a halt due to COVID.
Growth in this segment was primarily attributed to a significant increase in Endeavor Content project deliveries, agency-client commissions, and marketing and experiential activations.
Endeavor Content deliveries included See Season Two to Apple TV, Nine Perfect Strangers to Hulu in the US, and Amazon internationally.
The final four episodes each of Truth Be Told to Apple TV and The Wall Season Four to NBC, as well as docuseries McCartney 3,2,1 to Hulu.
Last quarter, we referenced that Endeavor Content revenues were impacted by a shift in content deliveries into Q3, which subsequently had a positive impact on this quarter.
Adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was 141.8 million, an increase of 100.1 million, primarily driven by the growth in revenue.
As mentioned last quarter, we continue to pace ahead on WME bookings for the second half of the year.
As concerts resumed in the quarter, WME have five of the six top tours and seven headliners at the Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo festivals.
On the film front, the agency was behind summer blockbusters such as Cruella, Jungle Cruise, A Quiet Place two, and Shang-Chi, the latter of which became the top-grossing film of the pandemic era in North America.
On the sports side, more than 50 clients competed in the Tokyo Olympics and nearly 20 broadcast clients covered it, while the men's, women's, and juniors' US Open singles titles were all won by clients.
On the brand side, IMG Licensing was named best licensing agency for its work with Goodyear and also launched a number of new product lines on behalf of talent and brands, including Shinola, Dolly Parton, Fortnite, Bugatti, Jeep, and Aston Martin.
Meanwhile, 160over90 continued gaining steam with its brand clients looking to activate at major sporting events with increased fan capacities.
At the summer's Olympic Games, the agency worked with several official partners, including managing the athlete relationships for Team Visa and Team Coca-Cola.
Finally, in this segment, we shared last quarter that we had initiated the sales process for a portion of Endeavor Content.
As a reminder, our plan is to divest the required portion of the WGA restricted business and retain the non-restricted businesses.
We continue to have positive conversations and are very bullish.
We've narrowed it down to a shortlist of potential buyers and we'll let you know when we have more to share on that front.
The updated guidance I'll share shortly assumes Endeavor Content is status quo for the balance of the year.
Now before I discuss guidance, I do want to briefly touch on our capital structure.
In Q2, we paid down a portion of debt under WME, IMG, and UFC credit facilities.
And in October, we raised 600 million of debt under our UFC facility.
We remain focused on strengthening our balance sheet and are on track to achieve or sub four times leverage target.
Now on to our updated guidance for the full year 2021.
As we've said before and will continue to say, we believe looking at our business on an annual basis is the best way to view it given the quarterly fluctuations related to timing of events, timing of business transactions on behalf of our clients, and timing of content deliveries.
As Ari mentioned earlier, we've been pleased with the pace of reopening, which has led to an uptick in productions and increase in attendance at events.
We, of course, continue to monitor vaccination rates and variants globally and plan for any potential impact.
As it currently stands, we remain generally positive on our outlook for the remainder of the year and into next.
We are, therefore, once again raising our revenue guidance from a prior range of between 4.8 billion and 4.85 billion to now between 4.89 billion and 4.95 billion.
And on adjusted EBITDA, we have raised the range from 765 million to 775 million to between 835 million and 845 million.
As a midpoint, this implies an over 17% margin, also in excess of our previous expectations.
Chris, can we take the first question, please?

user
endeavor releases third quarter 2021 results.
q3 revenue $1.4 billion.
increased 2021 revenue guidance to between $4.89 billion and $4.95 billion.
increased 2021 adjusted ebitda guidance to between $835 million and $845 million.

assistant