MSGE (2025 - Q4)

Good morning. Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Madison Square Garden Entertainment Corp. Fiscal 2025 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Ari Danes, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Treasury. Please go ahead. Ari Dane

Thank you. Good morning, and welcome to MSG Entertainment's Fiscal 2025 Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. On today's call, David Collins, our EVP and Chief Financial Officer, will provide an update on the company's operations and review our financial results for the quarter. 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 4 and 5 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 David.

Thanks, Ari, and good morning, everyone. During fiscal 2025, we again benefited from strong demand across our portfolio of entertainment assets which resulted in full year revenues of $942.7 million, along with adjusted operating income of $222.5 million, a 5% increase on a year-over-year basis. In addition, we repurchased approximately $40 million of our Class A common stock during fiscal '25, delivering on one of our core capital allocation priorities. As we enter the new fiscal year, we see a number of avenues for growth across our business which include continuing to increase the number of events at our venues, driving growth in per event profitability, building on the success of Christmas Spectacular and growing our sponsorship in premium hospitality businesses. And when combined with the strong consumer and corporate demand we continue to see, we believe our company is well positioned to drive solid growth in revenue and adjusted operating income in fiscal '26. Now let's review some key operational highlights from this past year. During fiscal '25, we hosted nearly 6 million guests at over 975 live events. The majority of these events were delivered by our bookings business where we saw modest growth in the number of events held at our venues compared to the prior year. This growth was led by special events, family shows and marquee sporting events. The number of concerts at our theaters also increased versus fiscal '24, while the number of concerts at the Garden was down year-over-year. Highlights in the special events category included multiday takeovers for Saturday Night Live's 50th Anniversary Special and the Tony Awards, both of which were held at Radio City. In our family show category, we welcome back the Westminster Dog Show to the Garden for the first time since 2020. Our sports booking business delivered another strong year, featuring marquee college basketball matchups, UFC 309 and the return of professional tennis to the Garden. On the concert front, the Garden's year-over-year decrease in events included the impact of the end of Billy Joel's residency, while the growth across our theaters reflected our success in attracting a number of multi-night runs from both first time and returning acts. At Radio City, we set a new record for the number of concepts. From a consumer demand standpoint, the majority of concerts at our venues continue to sell assets past fiscal year, including in our fiscal fourth quarter. In addition, during this past quarter, food and beverage per caps concerts at the Garden were up, while per caps at our theaters were modestly down as compared to the prior year quarter. Looking ahead to fiscal '26, we expect to grow the number of events at our venues on a year-over-year basis. We plan to again host a wide range of events across concerts, special events, family shows and marquee sports with our anticipated growth in total events primarily driven by an increase in concerts, including a return to growth in concerts at the Garden. Turning to the Christmas Spectacular production. During fiscal '25, we sold approximately 1.1 million tickets across 200 performances and generated over $170 million in revenue, a new record for the production in its 91st season. We are currently on sale with 211 shows for the 2025 holiday season and expect revenue growth for the production to be driven by the increased number of shows as well as higher per show revenue. Turning to our agreements with MSG Sports. In fiscal '25, the Knicks and Rangers played a combined 97 home games at the Garden compared to 103 games in the prior year. This decrease reflected fewer home playoff games at the Garden during our fiscal fourth quarter. However, we did see growth on a per-game basis in our Knicks and Rangers shared revenue streams, including suites, food, beverage and merchandise, and we expect this to carry forward into fiscal '26. In addition, the cash component of the arena license fees will be approximately $45 million in fiscal '26 and will continue to grow 3% each year through fiscal 2055. Turning to our marketing partnerships business. During fiscal '25, we welcomed several new partners, including Lenovo and its subsidiary Motorola as well as the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi. In addition, we reached multiyear renewals with Verizon and Pepsi. As you know, earlier in fiscal '25, we made the strategic decision to bring our sponsorship sales effort back in- house. Since then, we have made progress in building out our internal team, and we believe we're well positioned to capitalize on upcoming opportunities in fiscal '26. Turning to our premium hospitality business. During fiscal '25, we saw another year of strong demand for our premium hospitality offerings. We also benefited from our expanded event level club space as well as from a number of event and Lexus level suites that were renovated at the start of the fiscal year. Following this successful initiative, several more suites are in the process of being renovated, which we believe will again drive incremental revenue. So as we look to fiscal '26, I'm pleased to say we expect another year of growth in this area of our business. Now let's turn to our financial results. For the fiscal 2025 fourth quarter, we reported revenues of $154.1 million, a decrease of 17% as compared to the prior year period. This mainly reflected a decrease in revenues across our entertainment offerings and food, beverage and merchandise revenue categories. The decrease in revenues from entertainment offerings primarily reflected a decrease in event-related revenues from concerts. This was mainly due to a decrease in the number of concerts at the Garden as well as lower per concert revenues primarily due to a mix shift at the Garden from promoted events to rentals, partially offset by an increase in the number of concerts at our theaters. In addition, revenues subject to the sharing of economics with MSG Sports pursuant to the arena license agreements decreased year- over-year, primarily due to the impact of fewer Knicks and Rangers home games during the fourth quarter. This was partially offset by an increase in revenues from other live entertainment and sporting events primarily due to higher per event revenues. The decrease in food, beverage and merchandise revenues primarily reflected the impact of fewer Knicks and Rangers games at the Garden as well as fewer concerts at the Garden, partially offset by an increase in the number of concerts at the company's theaters as compared to the prior year quarter. Fourth quarter adjusted operating income decreased $14.4 million to a loss of $1.3 million as compared to the prior year quarter. The decrease in AOI primarily reflects lower revenues and to a lesser extent, higher SG&A expenses, partially offset by a decrease in direct operating expenses. Now turning to our balance sheet. As of June 30, we had approximately $43 million of unrestricted cash, while our debt balance was approximately $609 million. During the quarter, we refinanced our credit facility. This refinancing extended the facility's maturity for a new 5-year term ending June 2030 with a modest improvement in the borrowing rate and no change to the term loan or revolver capacity. Looking ahead to fiscal '26, we currently expect our company to have another year of substantial free cash flow generation. This reflects the following expectations: solid growth in adjusted operating income ongoing net interest payments related to our national properties debt, which totaled $45 million in fiscal '25, our status as a full cash taxpayer and capital expenditures, which will include both maintenance CapEx as well as some incremental spend related to enhancements at Radio City Music Hall and the Beacon Theatre and certain suite renovations at the Garden. As I mentioned earlier, during fiscal '25, we repurchased approximately 1.1 million shares of our Class A common stock for $40 million. Following these repurchases, we have approximately $70 million remaining under our current share repurchase authorization. And going forward, we will continue to explore ways to opportunistically return capital to shareholders. In summary, fiscal 2025 reflected strong demand for our entertainment assets. And as we look ahead to fiscal we are focused on organically growing the business and remain confident in our ability to deliver long-term shareholder value. With that, I will now turn the call back over to Ari. Thank you.

Thank you, David. Operator, can we open up the call for questions, please?

[Operator Instructions] Your first question today comes from the line of Peter Henderson from Bank of America.

So I'm just wondering, can you provide an update on how ticket sales are pacing for the Christmas Spectacular how to think about the growth opportunities for the production with the show count increasing to 211? How do you think about the sort of balance between sell-through and ticket pricing for this upcoming seasons run.

Yes, Peter, thanks for the question. As a reminder, we initially went on sale in March this year as opposed to April last year. So that impacts our year-over-year comparison [indiscernible] while it's still early in the sales cycle, our advanced ticket revenue continues to pace well ahead of last year at the same time. The pacing is reflected in both higher individual and group ticket sales. And that is driven by increases in our average ticket yield across both individual and group sales as well as higher volume from our individual tickets. In terms of growth drivers this year, we are on sale for 211 shows for this upcoming season as compared to 200 this past season, and that represents a mid-single-digit percent increase in show count. We can also increase the show count if demand warrants it, and that's something that we'll be watching closely. We also continue to see opportunities to improve our per show revenue for this year. As you know, the Christmas Spectacular is a premium entertainment product in this market. And it is still well priced -- I mean still priced well below average ticket prices for comparable entertainment options. So we will be strategically managing and marketing and pricing our ticketing inventory to maximize revenue for every show. So with all that said and all that's going on there, we remain confident in our ability to continue to grow this business this fiscal year.

Your next question comes from the line of Cameron Mansson-Perrone from Morgan Stanley.

First, I was wondering if you could just provide some more color on forward bookings trends as we look further out into the year and some color on kind of levels of visibility into fiscal '26 at this point in the year? And then somewhat relatedly, but separately outside of concert bookings and more specific to kind of special and other events. Just any detail you can give us on the outlook for fiscal '26. You highlighted some of the strength you had this year with SNL and other events. How's the calendar looking for fiscal '26? And how should we think about kind of the growth and calendar outlook across non-concerts, would be helpful.

Sure, Cameron. No problem. As I mentioned earlier, we expect to increase the number of booking events, including concerts in fiscal '26. So if you look on a full year basis, we are currently pacing ahead in concerts versus fiscal at this point in time. In fact, we are 80% to our bookings goal for the year at the Garden and we're about 2/3 of the way to our goal for our theaters. Our fiscal first quarter is already underway, and we are still on track for a new record number of concerts in a quarter at the Garden. We also expect our concerts to be up across our theaters in the September quarter as well. Taking a look at the December quarter, we are again piecing ahead at our theaters in terms of the number of concerts but still behind at the Garden. So with all that said, I would say overall, we feel good about our start and we expect to grow the number of events at our venues this year. Now in terms of your question about special events and bookings growth, let me take you through how we think about all our key booking categories for this upcoming year, including special events. So starting there, we're expecting a modest increase in the number of special events in fiscal '26. However, we will face a tough comparison in this category in terms of financial results, given the absence of our SNL's 50th anniversary special. But looking at the rest of the booking business, our growth in fiscal '26, we expect to be driven primarily by concerts, family shows and sports properties. From a concert category perspective, our expectations include a return to concert event growth at the Garden as well as continuing our growth across our theaters. In terms of our family show category, while we are not expecting growth in the number of events, we do expect to see improved financial results and that's mainly due to a return of Cirque du Soleil for 63 shows for the holiday season at the theater at MSG and the Chicago theater. And lastly, in terms of our marquee sports business, we expect to see modest event growth next year as well. We are expecting another robust year of college basketball and boxing. So given all that, I would say we are -- we definitely are expecting growth across a number of our bookings categories and feel good about our booking calendar for fiscal '26.

Your next question comes from the line of Peter Supino from Wolfe Research.

With the Gardens utilization, such an important part of your business. I just wondered if you could share some progress on utilization driving that higher presumably? And maybe if you can talk about any new residencies at the Garden that would fill the gap left by Billy Joel.

Sure. No problem. Thanks, Peter. Starting with the utilization question. As you know, we have a track record of successfully driving event growth at our venues. I would say from fiscal 2015, which was our first full year following the Gardens renovation through fiscal 2024, we drove mid-single-digit annual growth in the number of concerts at the Garden and across our venues. As you know, we did see a decrease in concerts at the Garden this past fiscal year. And as a result, the venue had an effective utilization of a little over 65% based on approximately 230 events in fiscal '25 and that includes our Knicks and Rangers games. We continue to believe there is real upside to utilization at the Garden, and we're looking to get back on track with event growth at the arena in fiscal '26. In terms of our 4 theaters, we hosted over 540 events, excluding the 200 Christmas Spectacular shows in fiscal '25, which averages to approximately 135 events or so at each venue. And if you look at that on a 365-day a year. You can see our theaters have a large slate of available dates to work from. So that's an opportunity that we are really targeting across our venues, we expect to benefit in future years and this year from continued industry growth, and we will continue to leverage our industry relationships to identify new events that include potential residencies, multi-night runs, additional marquee sports and special events. So given all that, we are confident in our ability to continue to grow our bookings business, including in fiscal '26. Now you had mentioned a potential new residency at the Garden. What I would say is that we are in the late planning stages for a residency next calendar year. This residency would include a substantial number of dates at the arena and would create potential for concert growth at the Garden in fiscal '27. And keeping in mind that will be following what we expect to be a strong performance here in fiscal '26. So we're looking forward to sharing more details on that residency when it's a more appropriate time.

Your next question comes from the line of Stephen Laszczyk from Goldman Sachs.

This is Antares on for Stephen. How would you describe the approach to capital returns coming up here in fiscal '26, specifically. Is there a plan to continue to be opportunistic with share buybacks? Or is there a chance you guys become more methodical in buying back stock from here?

Sure. Thanks for the question. Let me provide an update on how we're thinking about our capital allocation, including our capital returns. As I mentioned earlier, we expect fiscal '26 to be another year of AOI growth and significant free cash flow generation. As you've heard us discuss before, we have 3 main priorities in terms of capital allocation. The first is making sure we continue to have a strong balance sheet. Our net debt leverage was approximately 2.5x at quarter end, and we should continue to delever as the business grows. Second is to ensure that we have flexibility to invest in our core business when we see compelling opportunities. And as we look to fiscal '26, while there aren't any major capital projects to flag, we are always looking at ways in which we can enhance our current portfolio of offerings and generate attractive returns. And as I mentioned earlier, we are in the process of renovating several events and Lexus level suites, which should drive incremental revenue, and we also expect some incremental spend related to Radio City and the Beacon Theatre, which will enhance the guest experience at those theaters. And finally, our third priority is to opportunistically return capital to our shareholders. As I mentioned, we repurchased $40 million of stock during fiscal '25, and we have $70 million remaining under our current buyback authorization. So going forward, we will continue to explore ways to opportunistically return capital to our shareholders.

Your next question comes from the line of David Karnovsky from JPMorgan.

David, maybe just for the upcoming fiscal year. I wanted to see if you could just discuss how we should think about trajectory of various cost items or even margin, if you can speak to it, just recognizing that event mix is always a factor.

Sure. Thanks, David. As I mentioned earlier, we expect to deliver solid AOI growth in fiscal '26. And that reflects a number of components. First of all, we expect to see growth across our core categories, and that includes our bookings, the Christmas Spectacular suites, marketing partnerships. Our expectations for AOI growth also reflect higher corporate costs, however. And that includes the impact of staffing up our sponsorship business as well as executive management and other hires that we have made in recent months. With that said, we are always looking for ways to run our business more efficiently, and we'll look for opportunities to offset those cost increases I would say, from a margin standpoint, that we have the opportunity to modestly expand our AOI margins in fiscal '26, even with the higher SG&A expenses. All of our key revenue lines carry attractive contribution margins, and we expect broad-based growth across our business this year. So taking into account all of those factors, we expect to deliver solid AOI growth in fiscal '26 and have the opportunity to modestly improve our AOI margins.

Your final question comes from the line of David Joyce from Seaport Research Partners.

A couple please. One on sponsorship. You did just mention staffing up some more for that infrastructure. What is your outlook for sponsorship over the course of the next fiscal year. Is there some sort of quarterly cadence we should expect? And then secondly, on the consumer demands for the concerts given that you've got more events coming, how have you seen so far in this quarter, the per cap spending on the ancillary trends, how are the pricing trends? Basically, what's your outlook for the health of the consumer?

Sure. Thanks, David. In terms of our sponsorship outlook, let's take a step back and let me say that we offer our marketing partners here at MSG, a strong value proposition with our unique assets and brands here at MSG. We did see that this past year with a number of notable sponsorship announcements such as Lenovo, its subsidiary, Motorola, the Department of Culture and Tourism Abu Dhabi, Verizon, Pepsi. And we believe this positive momentum will continue as we look and go through fiscal '26. Secondly, we have several premium sponsorship assets available, and those include outdoor signage naming rights at our theater at MSG as well as we have some notable presenting partnerships across our venues. So we also have a number of renewals coming up that we are optimistic about. And lastly, I would say from a sponsorship perspective, our sponsorship sales effort being back in-house makes us truly believe that we are well positioned to execute on all of these opportunities in this year ahead. And taking a look at your question regarding consumer demand, while we're certainly keeping an eye on the macro environment, we continue to see strong consumer demand. A number of factors that support this view is we are seeing strong demand for the Christmas Spectacular 2025 holiday run. And our advanced tickets are pacing well ahead of last year at this time. In terms of bookings, the majority of concerts at our venues were again sold out this past quarter and a number of upcoming acts across our venues have also added additional shows due to strong demand. And looking at our fiscal first quarter, the sell-through rate for concerts is currently pacing ahead of where it was same time last year. In addition, our overall F&B per cap spending at concerts at the Garden was up double-digit percentages in our fiscal fourth quarter. While our per caps at our theaters were modestly down. And for the month of July, our concert F&B per caps on a combined basis across our venues were up a double-digit percentage. So with all that said, we believe that we continue to see strong demand from consumers.

And that concludes our question-and-answer session. I will now turn the call back over to Ari Danes for closing remarks.

Thank you all for joining us. We look forward to speaking with you on our next earnings call. Have a good day.

That concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.