WWE releases Q1 2014 earnings

Read on for my thoughts on all of the recent WWE financial news.

WWE is being investigated for potential violations of securities laws. There really aren't any specific claims mentioned, so there's nothing to really discuss or dispute.

Update: WWE fired back. If you were expecting WWE to say the claims were 100% true and confess everything (if there's anything to confess), you don't know them very well.

- WWE announced a loss of $8 million, mostly tied to the launch of the WWE Network and transition to a new video game partner. Ouch! The knee-jerk reaction's not going to go too well for them.

- No new TV deal yet in the U.S.. It was expected they'd be announcing that soon. That's also a concern. I fully expect them to announce a big deal soon, but I think fans wanted something at this meeting.

- They expect even bigger losses next quarter as they continue to move from PPVs to the Network.

- Net revenues were notably up in the U.S., which is good! However, they were down in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Not so good.

- WWE Studios is doing notably better than in 2013. That's good. It suffered a rough track for quite a while, so it seems like it's finally out of that whole.

- It looks like international fans weren't as sold on the Royal Rumble or Elimination Chamber. Given how poorly received the Rumble was in particular, I can't say that's a huge surprise.

- "Total Divas" is doing well for the company. No big shock there. It reaches a completely different demo than the core WWE product.

- The WWE Magazine continues to flounder as more and more content makes its way online. It's a shame, because there's usually some great stuff in there.

- WWEShop's picking up business. That's great.

WWE held a conference call as well.
- The WWE Network could end up being really successful. It's going to take some time for it to be fully realized, though.

- I wonder how much longer they can postpone announcing the TV deal. They need to get that sucker locked in.

- Expanding the Network internationally will be a big boon when that finally happens. Rome wasn't built in a day.

- Naturally they're continuing to be evasive about things people want answers to.

So yeah, that's that. More wrestling coming up.