Transcript
A (0:00)
Foreign. I'm Dan Runcy. Welcome to Trapital. Let's take a trip to the eighth wonder of the world, Sphere Entertainment. The company just released its full year 2025 earnings and the big takeaway is. Yes, but the sales this year were up 8% to $1.22 billion. And the sphere is profitable, $33 million in profit, which for this business is great. A lot of people weren't sure that this would be a profitable business, but the company did move some debt around, which we'll get into. The two big revenue streams for the Sphere are its Experiences and its concert residencies. For Experiences, the big release of 2025 was the wizard of Oz. Sphere Entertainment licensed the IP and remastered it to make it work inside of its arena so you could feel the wind blowing as the characters are going down the yellow brick road. The whole thing. To date, the wizard of Oz has grossed over $290 million in ticket sales, 2.2 million tickets sold, and grosses nearly $800,000 per show. The media has widely celebrated it as a hit and a success, but when we compare the financial statements from 2025-24, the revenue for experiences is up 2029 percent, but the costs are also up 25%. So yes, it's a success, but those costs have also risen as well. On the concert residency side, the Sphere had more concerts in 2025 than it did the year before, 37 more shows and a wider range of artists like the Backstreet boys, the Eagles, U2, Phish, Dead and Company and more. And in 2026 there were some newcomers announced as well, such as no Doubt and Metallica and and some non music events too, like the Floyd Mayweather Manny Pacquiao fight, which firmly fits into the category of Is this event ridiculous? Yes. Am I going to watch every minute of it? Yes. Which brings us to our central Is the Sphere a good business? We first broke down the company back in August 2024. We had Tati Sirisano come back on and join us on this episode and we talk more about the Sphere's expansion plans for whether or not the wizard of Oz can repeat as a hit. Is the wizard of Oz enough? What do we want to see from a concert perspective, the advertising opportunities and more. Is the Sphere a good business? Let's break it down. This episode of Trapital is presented by linktree, the link in bio tool that lets artists house everything in one place. Streaming links, tour dates, merch videos, art, audience collections, socials and more. With 60 integrations across the platforms you already use, like TikTok, Instagram, Shopify and Lelo. Linktree allows you to centralize your ecosystem, save time, and optimize your entire online presence from one place. Fans can tap one link and choose their preferred streaming platform, whether it's Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, or any others, to easily listen to your releases and and make discovery seamless. You can build hype before the release day with Spotify Pre Save links and automatically use those to convert to streaming links when your track goes live. You can also own your audience by collecting fan emails and phone numbers directly through your link tree and build a list that you control instead of depending on algorithms. You can also see which cities engage most with your music, which links get clicked, which and when fans are active. Plan your tours and releases Smarter. Use code TRAPITAL50 for 50% off your first three months of Linktree Pro. That's T R A P I T A L50. You can get started at linktree.com or tap the link in our Show Notes. Terms and conditions apply. For more info, tap the link in our Show Notes to view the landing page. If you love listening to trapital and want to stay ahead in the world of tech startups and venture capital equity, TechCrunch's flagship podcast has the inside scoop. Every Wednesday and Friday, they dive into the stories that matter most, from expert interviews to in depth discussions and roundtable chats with their team of TechCrunch reporters. Whether you're an entrepreneur looking for tips or just curious about what's shaping tomorrow's world, they've got you covered. Tune in to Equity wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're here with Tati Sirsano from Media Research and we're going to talk about Sphere Entertainment. You and I broke this business down in summer 2024, so a lot has changed since then. So where do you stand right now? You buy and sell and hold in?
