Sphere posts $170 million in revenue as CEO James Dolan, second purchase 'Coming Soon'

Building a state-of-the-art Sphere venue “isn't like building a McDonalds,” Sphere Entertainment Co. president and CEO. James Dolan he said during the company's earnings call on Friday. “It's complicated. It's a very expensive project.”

The lone Sphere venue in Las Vegas, which cost $2.3 billion to build due to delays and cost overruns during the COVID-19 pandemic, brought in $170.4 million in revenue in the fiscal third quarter ended March 31, parent company Sphere Entertainment Co. said on Friday. . Revenue was slightly better than $167.8 million in the prior quarter. Adjusted operating income was $12.9 million, down slightly from the prior quarter's AOI of $14.1 million.

Dolan wants to build more Spheres and insists that a second space will materialize. The company is “in discussions with a lot of markets” and has had “a lot of interest around the world,” he said, “but it wasn't until we launched the product in September that people really understood what it was and started to see how it could perform.” .

Sphere will reach an agreement with “at least one of those markets soon,” Dolan added. “How soon I'm not going to predict.”

The Sphere, which wowed music fans with residencies by U2 and Phish, drew nearly a million visitors to more than 270 events in the quarter, Dolan said. In addition to concerts, Sphere offers a motion picture, Postcard from Earththis CFO David Burns generated $100 million in revenue in the quarter. In June, Sphere will host its first corporate event, a keynote address by Hewlett Packard Enterprise Chairman and CEO Antonio Neri, and the first televised event, the NHL draft.

Demand from artists to appear at the Sphere is “stronger than we can handle even at this point,” Dolan claimed. The label wants to have “a diverse number of kinds of acts, not just legacy rock” and “acts that have the biggest strengths,” he added.

Dead & Co. begin their 24-year residency on May 16. An Eagles residency has not been officially announced, but Dolan suggested during the earnings call that the band will indeed appear at the Sphere.

“Even if you're not a Deadhead, you're going to love this show,” Dolan said when discussing the need to create “exciting” visuals to complement the bands' musical performances. “And I think the same will be true for the Eagles and the next acts we're going to bring out.”

Sphere Entertainment Co. had an operating loss of $40.4 million on revenue of $321.3 million. The company's other division, MSG Networks, had AOI of $48.6 million, down 17%, on revenue of $151 million, down 6% from the year-ago quarter. The company explained that those figures were down from the year-ago quarter “primarily due to a 12.5% ​​decline in subscribers, including the impact of MSG+,” the network's streaming platform.