Today World Wrestling Entertainment released their 2008 First Quarter Results. You can view the entire release here at their corporate website (PDF file).

Without going through every detail, here's a brief summary of 2008's first quarter compared to 2007's first quarter: Revenues totaled $162.6 million as compared to $107.4 million in the comparable prior year quarter. Operating income was $27.1 million as compared to $20.6 million in the prior year quarter. Net income was $19.5 million, or $0.27 per share, as compared to $15.1 million, or $0.21 per share, in the prior year quarter.

Big picture, it was a strong quarter across the board for WWE.

One line item that was a bit off this year was the WrestleMania buyrate. The official numbers are in and there's no denying this year's WrestleMania was a huge success. Wrestlemania 24 pulled in 1,058,000 buys for the company, bringing in $23.8 million dollars in revenue with an average North American price of $54.95. This is a very strong showing for the company, but unfortunately it falls short of last year's record-breaking show.

Wrestlemania 23, headlined by the Battle of the Billionaires, pulled in an estimated 1.2 million buys with $24.6 million in revenue (average price of $49.95 in North America).

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