Media Man News Blog: Wrestling News, WWE News, Vince McMahon News
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Saturday, January 07, 2023
Media Man News Blog: World Directory - India, African - Casino Directory via Media Man Group
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World Directory - India, African - Casino Directory via Media Man Group
India, African - Casino Directory via Media Man Group
African, Indian Casino Directory via Media Man Group
Friday, January 06, 2023
Media Man News Blog: Vince McMahon Takes Actions in Support of Plan for WWE to Undertake a Review of Strategic Alternatives and Capture Unique Opportunity to Maximize Long-term Value for All Shareholders
Media Man News Blog
Vince McMahon Takes Actions in Support of Plan for WWE to Undertake a Review of Strategic Alternatives and Capture Unique Opportunity to Maximize Long-term Value for All Shareholders
Submits written consent to WWE Board electing himself and Company veterans George Barrios and Michelle Wilson as Directors
Actions are necessary to ensure McMahon's full participation in upcoming media rights negotiations and review of strategic alternatives
GREENWICH, Conn., Jan. 5, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Vince McMahon, the founder and controlling shareholder of World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. ("WWE" or the "Company") (NYSE: WWE), announced today that he has taken necessary actions to position the Company to capitalize on a unique opportunity to maximize long-term value for all WWE shareholders. The actions, communicated to WWE's Board of Directors today via written consent, include the election to the Board of Mr. McMahon, as well as Michelle Wilson and George Barrios – former WWE Co-Presidents and Board members, and currently the Co-Founders and Co-CEOs of Isos Capital Management – and the requisite removal from the Board of three directors. Mr. McMahon expects to assume the role of Executive Chairman of the Board.
Mr. McMahon's new role will enable unified decision making through the Company's upcoming media rights negotiations and a parallel full review of the Company's strategic alternatives, which Mr. McMahon believes is the right course of action and in the best interests of WWE and WWE shareholders amidst the current dynamics in the media and entertainment industry. As Mr. McMahon has communicated to the Board, he believes there is a narrow window of opportunity to create significant value for all shareholders and that to do so, the strategic alternatives review must occur in tandem with the media rights negotiations. He also expressed to the Board that he believes these two initiatives require Mr. McMahon's direct participation, leadership, and support as controlling shareholder.
"WWE is entering a critical juncture in its history with the upcoming media rights negotiations coinciding with increased industry-wide demand for quality content and live events and with more companies seeking to own the intellectual property on their platforms," said Mr. McMahon. "The only way for WWE to fully capitalize on this opportunity is for me to return as Executive Chairman and support the management team in the negotiations for our media rights and to combine that with a review of strategic alternatives. My return will allow WWE, as well as any transaction counterparties, to engage in these processes knowing they will have the support of the controlling shareholder."
Prior to delivering written consent, Mr. McMahon sent two separate letters to the Board in late December in which he expressed the urgency of his return to the Company as Executive Chairman and his desire to work collaboratively with the Board and management team. Following conversations with representatives of the Company both before and after Mr. McMahon's most recent letter on December 31, Mr. McMahon determined, consistent with his rights as controlling shareholder, that the steps announced today are necessary to maximize value for all WWE shareholders.
Mr. McMahon said, "Ms. Wilson and Mr. Barrios are highly qualified directors whose professional experience positions them well to help the Company achieve the best possible outcomes in both initiatives. As former WWE Co-Presidents and Board members, they are intimately familiar with industry dynamics and the organization's operations and have helped guide the Company through past successful media rights negotiations. I look forward to working closely again with Michelle and George – as well as the Company's remaining directors and management team, who have my full support and confidence. WWE has an exceptional management team in place, and I do not intend for my return to have any impact on their roles, duties, or responsibilities."
In conjunction with the changes to WWE's Board, Mr. McMahon's written consent also includes certain amendments to the Company's bylaws to ensure that WWE's corporate governance continues to properly enable and support shareholder rights. These changes will be detailed in a Schedule 13D amendment to be filed by Mr. McMahon and a Form 8-K to be filed by the Company in the coming days.
No assurances can be given regarding the outcome or timing of the review process. Mr. McMahon does not intend to comment further until the process has concluded or Mr. McMahon has otherwise determined that further disclosure is appropriate or required.
Michelle Wilson Biography
Ms. Wilson is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Isos Capital Management. She is a leading sports and entertainment c-suite executive and, prior to founding Isos with Mr. Barrios, most recently served as Co-President and Board Member of WWE until January 2020. In 2018, Forbes named Ms. Wilson one of the 10 Most Powerful Women in Sports. She also was featured on the Adweek 50 list, which highlights the leading executives in Media, Marketing and Technology, and named one of Sports Illustrated's 10 Most Influential Women in Sports. She joined WWE in 2009 and prior to her appointment as Co-President, served as Chief Revenue and Marketing Officer.
Previously, Michelle served as the Chief Marketing Officer of the United States Tennis Association, oversaw all marketing efforts for the launch of the XFL, a partnership between WWE and NBC, and held consumer products and brand management positions at the NBA and Nabisco, respectively. She received her MBA from Harvard Business School and currently serves on the Boards of Bowlero Corporation and Turtle Beach Corporation.
George Barrios Biography
Mr. Barrios serves as Isos Capital Management's Co-Founder and Co-CEO. He is an award-winning c-suite executive and most recently served as Co-President and Board Member of WWE until January 2020. In 2017, Institutional Investor ranked George among the Top 3 CFOs in the Media Industry as part of its All-America Executive team rankings. He joined WWE in 2008 as its Chief Strategy and Financial Officer.
Previously, he held leadership roles in finance, strategy and operations at the New York Times, Praxair, Time Warner and HBO. He received his MBA from the University of Connecticut School of Business and currently serves as the National Board Chair of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Kirkland & Ellis is serving as legal counsel to Mr. McMahon.
Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward looking statements include statements regarding Mr. McMahon's return to the Board as Executive Chairman, the impact of Mr. McMahon, Ms. Wilson and Mr. Barrios as members of the Board, the timing and success of the Company's media rights negotiations and the Company's review of strategic alternatives. In addition, the words "may," "will," "could," "anticipate," "plan," "continue," "project," "intend," "estimate," "believe," "expect," "outlook," "target," "goal," "guidance" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements, although not all forward-looking statements contain such words. These statements relate to future possible events, as well as plans, objectives, expectations and intentions and are not historical facts and accordingly involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results to be materially different from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements are subject to uncertainties relating to, without limitation, the matters referred to in this release, the complexity of the Company's rights agreements across distribution mechanisms and geographical areas and the Company's review of strategic alternatives. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date made and are subject to change without any obligation to update or revise them. Undue reliance should not be placed on these statements.
SOURCE Vince McMahon
Thursday, January 05, 2023
Media Man News Blog: Major sports want anti-siphoning rules eased, eye more paywalled matches (The Sydney Morning Herald)
Media Man News Blog
Major sports want anti-siphoning rules eased, eye more paywalled matches (The Sydney Morning Herald)
Australia’s most popular sports are urging the federal government to ease laws that determine which matches can be watched for free, warning any further restrictions would prevent them from gaining large sums of money needed to invest in the future of their games.
The Coalition of Major Professional and Participation Sports (COMPPS) – which represents the AFL, Cricket Australia, the NRL, Tennis Australia, Rugby Australia, Netball Australia and Football Australia –said in a submission to a government review of Australia’s anti-siphoning laws that it wants to number of sports competitions and matches required to be shown on free-to-air television to be reduced, and more content put behind a paywall.
Media Man News Blog: Casino bosses, directors brace for another tough year
Casino bosses, directors brace for another tough year
From punitive pokie taxes to new regulatory actions and the high cost of reform, casinos are not the lucrative businesses (or easy directorships) they once were.
As 2022 drew to a close, staff (and shareholders) of Star Entertainment were probably breathing a sigh of relief that their annus horribilis, with its damning regulatory inquiries, cancelled casino licences and more than a dozen senior departures, was nearly over.
But Australian Securities and Investments Commission chairman Joe Longo and NSW Treasurer Matt Kean still had two Christmas surprises in store.
First, on the evening of December 12, Longo lodged a landmark Federal Court civil action alleging that 11 Star directors and executives had failed to exercise due care and diligence when making a slew of decisions related to anti-money laundering measures and high roller junkets at the casino.
Five days later, Kean announced a new pokie tax that will cost Star and rival Crown Resorts about $120 million annually. It triggered a near-instant 18 per cent drop in the former’s share price, feeding into a 44 per cent drop for the year.
It sets the scene for a 2023 that could be as grim for the casino industry as the three scandal-ridden years preceding it, with questions over the appeal of governance roles, given directors’ responsibilities will become more onerous, the viability of casinos’ reform agendas, and just how profitable they can be.
From a governance perspective, gambling company boards, along with the rest of Australia’s director class, are facing an uncertain future. ASIC clearly has higher standards of them now.
The upshot will be more work, increased accountability and higher expectations with what they do with their 10 days of board meetings a year.
“The signal [from ASIC] is pretty clear – if you want to be on the board of a large gambling concern, then you need to be around all the regulatory concerns of the industry, which are many and varied,” Monash University gambling regulation expert Dr Charles Livingstone says.
“You can’t just sit there and have lunch once a month and rake in the big dollars any more – you need to be more curious now and make sure you show that you’re doing that. You can’t just say ‘well they [management] didn’t tell us’, you have to make them tell you.”
This means proactively ensuring the casinos’ anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing policies are up to scratch, he says, and that board members are updated on this monthly. It includes ensuring companies investigate and report potentially problematic sources of patrons’ funds.
On the responsible gambling front, he says directors need to demand updates on what hours people are gambling and what actions casinos take against any potential problem gamblers.
While this would take a lot more work from directors and staff, it is not impossible, Livingstone says.
“It’s not unenforceable, but it becomes a much less profitable business if you do it properly, and that’s the issue.”
It was previously “very easy to cut corners at every level” from problem gamblers on pokies to high rollers bringing in bags of cash, he says, and cutting out these customers would lead to “really significant losses”.
The cost of developing and maintaining compliance measures is also steep. Crown reportedly spent about $150 million on outsourcing such work to lawyers and consultants in 2021-22, and Star predicted its remediation costs this financial year will range from $35 million to $45 million. Crown has also been hit with hundreds of millions of dollars in fines, and Star is facing similar penalties.
“But that just means you’re going to be looking at a business that’s getting more like normal levels of profit and return, whereas before they were recording these extraordinary returns on their investment. It will be more like a retail business than a licence to print money,” Livingstone says.
It also means the director class, famous for juggling several board gigs at once, and the generous payments that come with them, may consider giving up their other governance roles if they want to preside over casinos.
Star chairman Ben Heap, one of the directors sued by ASIC, currently holds two other directorships, for example. New director Anne Ward is also chairwoman of two other listed outfits, director David Foster is on the boards of four companies in addition to Star, and incoming director Toni Thornton holds four other directorships.
“But now you’ve got to be so on the ball that you probably wouldn’t be on many other directorships,” Livingstone says.
“There’s a lot more work in [casino director roles] now, and a lot more responsibility than they’ve accepted in the past because the potential for this to get on the wrong side of the law is massive.”
Morningstar analyst Angus Hewitt says it will be up to directors to decide on their workload, but they will need to be able to answer the question: Do I have a good understanding of what’s happening at this company?
“And if not, then, you know, there’s a problem,” he says.
The ASIC action means all directors, not just those at Star, will have to ask themselves this question.
“Will that require more meetings or will that require directors with fewer directorships? I don’t know. Presumably, that’s up to those people to decide. There’s a certain amount of work to be done in this job. And it is a job. And how many other directorships can you hold to be able to do that appropriately?” Hewitt says.
“I think with what’s been happening with ASIC they’ll all be having those thoughts.”
A spokesman for Star said the company’s directors were “highly experienced and appropriately skilled”. He said they were committed to restoring Star’s suitability to hold casino licences through a “comprehensive remediation plan … for enhancing our governance, culture and controls”.
Listed v unlisted
Of course, Star could go down the path that Crown did and turn to private equity, which would give Star’s directors a hefty payday and exempt them from the stringent listing rules and governance principles set by the Australian Securities Exchange.
But Star is not like Crown Resorts, which was bought out by US private equity firm Blackstone for $8.9 billion this year.
The first major difference is Crown had a private equity target on its back because the company knew major shareholder James Packer had to sell down his shareholding to show governments and regulators it was serious about change.
Second, Star’s assets are attractive but not valued as highly as Crown’s.
But Hewitt says Star, which is likely to keep its casino licences in NSW and Queensland, is still very cheap for what it is: effectively a money printing machine.
“As long as it has those licences, Star’s properties are cash-generating machines. This all provides an interesting opportunity for an investor – whether that investor is mum buying a handful of shares or whether it’s a PE firm buying the whole thing.”
A rocky year ahead
Whether listed or not, however, Australia’s casinos are in for another wild ride in 2023.
The NSW gambling regulator extended the reign of Nick Weeks, the special manager appointed to Star’s flagship casino in Sydney, until 2024 from an initial 90 days. Queensland authorities have also installed a manager to oversee Star’s Brisbane and Gold coast operations, reporting to Weeks.
Gambling regulators already have imposed more than $100 million in fines on Crown in Victoria and $200 million on Star in NSW and Queensland. That’s in addition to potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for money laundering that AUSTRAC is seeking in separate Federal Court cases against both Crown and Star.
There’s the ASIC case against the Star directors, as well as continuing class actions from investors burned by the two companies’ tumbling share prices during media coverage of their misconduct.
The NSW tax reforms will also be costly. Star CEO Robbie Cooke has pushed back on the taxes, saying Star is “not sure how the government modelled its financials nor the basis for suggesting the Star does not pay its fair share of taxes”, and requesting urgent meetings with the government.
But as The Australian Financial Review’s Chanticleer column noted, Star has lost its social licence and should not expect much sympathy from politicians or voters.
The upshot of this is it’s going to be a tough year for those overseeing Australia’s biggest casinos.
Says Livingstone: “It doesn’t sound like a job I’d want, it sounds like a nightmare.”
(AFR)
Wednesday, January 04, 2023
Media Man News Blog: Featured Articles
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Monday, January 02, 2023
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Media Man News Blog: Seneca Nation president: Casino compact talks progressing
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Seneca Nation president: Casino compact talks progressing
So what's the latest on negotiations over a new gaming compact between the state of New York and the Seneca Nation of Indians?
During a recent interview with the Niagara Gazette, Seneca Nation President Rickey Armstrong Sr. said, from his point of view, talks are progressing.
Armstrong said representatives from the Nation continue to meet regularly with state officials and he remains hopeful that a tentative deal will be in place for review by the federal government by the summer of 2023.
"We've made every effort to make progress," Armstrong said.
"We want to continue to work toward a new gaming compact that reflects the gaming landscape in Buffalo, Niagara Falls," he added.
The current gaming compact, which provides the Seneca Nation with exclusive rights to operate Class III casinos in Western New York, including Niagara Falls, Buffalo and Salamanca, is set to expire in December 2023.
Seneca officials have argued in the past that since the signing of the original compact, other gaming outlets, including so-called "racinos" in Hamburg and Batavia, cut into their exclusivity by offering video lottery terminals similar to slot machines.
Armstrong said the Nation has been working on its end of the proposed agreement for about two years and that he's confident the Nation has "covered all of our bases."
He maintains that the Seneca Gaming Corp.'s three local casinos have provided economic benefit to host communities like the Falls and Buffalo, in the form of jobs and spinoff from investments made by the companies with local vendors.
In addition, the compact has allowed the state of New York to collect a percentage of slot machine revenues from Seneca casinos, with 25% of those dollars being distributed to the Falls, Buffalo and Salamanca.
"I'm hopeful that the state recognizes the impact we've had on Western New York," Armstrong said.
In a statement in response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for Gov. Kathy Hochul's office said the executive chamber and the state gaming commission have been having "substantive negotiations" with the Seneca Nation for months.
"We are fully committed to continuing to meet, discuss, and negotiate a compact, and we are confident that the process will continue in a way that best serves New Yorkers," the spokesperson said.
Media Man News Blog: SEO 2022 in review: E-E-A-T, ChatGPT, Search Essentials and more; Top 10 SEO expert columns of 2022 on Search Engine Land
Media Man News Blog
SEO 2022 in review: E-E-A-T, ChatGPT, Search Essentials and more (Search Engine Land)
Social Media
Greg Tingle
SELs Danny with an excellent feature on the SEO Year In Review. The Google algorithm updates remained a hot topic during much of the year, as webbys across the world hung on every word from Google powers that be and Search Engine Land (and the other guys down the road), to be fair. In addition the E.A.T acronym aka Expertise - Authority - Trustworthiness element grew to become E.E.A.T - the extra E for Experience. I knew my 20 years in and around web publishing, martial arts, pro wrestling, beach culture and subscription television would come in extra handy again sometime, and 2022 was that year. Subscription television morphed more to become streaming video and streaming entertainment, and pop culture has largely embraced it. Great for our coverage of 'The Matrix', WWE Network, Peacock, Paramount, 'Top Gun', "Hacking Google', UFC, FITE TV, VICE TV, Netflix and even Alphabet's YouTube Movies. 2022 was a year that many web and media entrepreneurs further developed their niche as everyone went after their slice of the action and advertising budget spend, with eyes on the return of investment and Tech Wreck (Twitter, Meta etc) throw in. If you're still in business or in a gig you did well. What a ride it continues to be. Web 3 next!
Top 10 SEO expert columns of 2022 on Search Engine Land
Social Media
Greg Tingle
SEL's Danny with an impressive list of the Top 10 SEO expert articles/feature for the year of 2022. We love the concept that the web and readership has the final say as to what is hot, topical and most popular. Power to The People. The social media channels also help facilitate the ongoing popularity of the articles, channel and Search Engine Land website in general. The genius of world class SEO and related news media coverage in action. Here's to ongoing SEO success for all.
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