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Dismal third quarter for World Poker Tour Enterprises
November 5, 2008 (InfoPowa News) — World Poker Tour Enterprises released its performance figures for the third quarter ending on September 28, 2008 this week, portraying a continued disappointing decline in revenues to $2.8 million, a marked decrease when compared with the same period in 2007, when $4.4 million was achieved.
CEO Steve Lipscomb said the decline was primarily the result of a decrease in domestic television license fees and lower domestic sponsorship fees.
Net losses also mounted to $2.5 million (Q3 2007: $2.2 million). Third quarter operating results included a $1.9 million non-cash asset impairment charge related to an investment in Cecure Gaming. Excluding this asset impairment charge, net loss was $2.5 million compared to $2.2 million in the same period in 2007. This was explained as primarily a result of lower revenues offset by lower expenses due to cost cutting measures.
Revenues in the first nine months of 2008 decreased to $12.9 million, compared to $16.6 million in the same period in 2007. Net loss in the first nine months of 2008 was $11.1 million compared to $7.8 million in the same period in 2007.
Business highlights for the quarter included:
* The delivery of three episodes of Season Six of the World Poker Tour television series
* The signing of a broadcast license agreement with Fox Sports Network to air 26 all-new, one hour episodes of Season Seven of the WPT television series in the United States, across FSN’s national sports cable network.
* Continued progress in the development of ClubWPT.com and the WPT China National Traktor Poker Tour.
* Continued cost-cutting measures designed to right size operations.
Subsequent to the end of the quarter, WPT began airing a new poker program in collaboration with FSN, focused on building awareness and driving traffic to the company’s online subscription website, ClubWPT.com.
WPT recently announced the termination of the WPT-branded online gaming website that will be completed in November. The cost implications of this early termination of its software agreement with CryptoLogic are still to be revealed. Ironically, online gaming revenues rose modestly in the third quarter of 2008 compared to the third quarter of 2007, but this revenue source will be discontinued in the fourth quarter of 2008 due to the recently announced shut down of the website.
Domestic television license revenues were $0.9 million in the third quarter of 2008, compared to $1.4 million in the third quarter of 2007, which is due to lower per-episode license fees under the Game Show Network agreement in effect during the 2008 period, as compared to the Travel Channel agreement which was in effect during the 2007 period.
International television licensing revenues decreased to $0.3 million in the third quarter of 2008 compared to $0.5 million in the third quarter of 2007, with the decrease due to lower fees associated with international distribution agreements.
Product licensing revenues decreased to $0.7 million in the third quarter of 2008, compared to $0.8 million in the third quarter of 2007. The decrease was primarily due to lower revenues from one customer in the current quarter as compared to the 2007 period.
Event hosting and sponsorship revenues in the third quarter of 2008 decreased to $0.7 million from $1.6 million in the third quarter of 2007, primarily due to no sponsorship revenues from one sponsor in the third quarter of 2008 and lower international sponsorship revenues in the 2008 period.
Other revenues in the third quarter of 2008 were higher than the third quarter of 2007 due to the addition of revenues from the subscription-based website ClubWPT.com in the 2008 period. In October 2008, FSN began airing “ClubWPT”, a new poker program focused on building awareness and driving traffic to ClubWPT.com.
