Madison Square Garden Sports Corp (MSGS) 2017 Q4 法說會逐字稿

Good morning. My name is Christie, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to The Madison Square Garden Company Fiscal 2017 Fourth Quarter Earnings Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Thank you.

I would now like to turn the call over to Ari Danes, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations for The Madison Square Garden Company. Please go ahead, sir.

Thanks, Christie. Good morning, and welcome to The Madison Square Garden Company's Fiscal 2017 Fourth Quarter and Year-End Earnings Conference Call.

Our President and CEO, Doc O'Connor, will begin this morning's call with a discussion of the company's operations. This will be followed by a review of our financial results with Donna Coleman, our EVP and Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, we will open up the call for questions.

If you do not have a copy of today's earnings release, it is available in the Investors section of our corporate website. Please take note of the following: today's discussion may contain statements that constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Investors are cautioned that any such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance or results and involve risks and uncertainties, and that actual results, developments and events may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors.

These include financial community perceptions of the company and its business, operations, financial condition and the industry in which it operates as well as the factors described in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the sections entitled risk factors and management's discussion and analysis of financial condition and results of operations contained therein. The company disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements that may be discussed during this call.

Lastly, on Page 4 of today's earnings release, we provide consolidated statements of operations and a reconciliation of operating income to adjusted operating income, a non-GAAP financial measure.

I would now like to introduce Doc O'Connor, President and CEO of The Madison Square Garden Company.

Thank you, Ari, and good morning, everyone. With our second year as a standalone public company now behind us, we are increasingly confident that our position as a pure-play provider of live sports and entertainment uniquely positions us to create significant long-term value for our shareholders.

From a financial standpoint, we generated strong underlying results for fiscal 2017, a reflection of our continued ability to deliver exceptional live experiences for our customers and our partners. The strong fundamentals of our business and industry, combined with our ongoing efforts to more efficiently and effectively harness the strength of our sports and entertainment assets, also helped drive a number of operational successes in fiscal 2017.

As we talked about this year, improving the utilization of our venues by attracting more premium events is a top priority that, in addition to increasing profitability, also enhances the value we provide our customers, marketing partners and suite holders.

For fiscal 2017, we again achieved our goal of increasing the overall number of events at our venues, which led to growth in event-related revenue and AOI, highlighted by impressive results at the Forum as well as continued growth at The Garden, Radio City Music Hall and theater at Madison Square Garden. These results reflect our emphasis on increasing multi-night and multi-venue concerts as well as our ongoing push to attract a wide variety of premium events, including the most popular family shows, marquee sporting attractions and special events.

Some of this year's past highlights include: Adele's unforgettable 6 night, sold-out run at Madison Square Garden, which also played host to the MTV Video Music Awards for the first time ever; our continued success -- successful residencies, Billy Joel at The Garden and Jerry Seinfeld at The Beacon; the Tony Awards returned to the great stage at Radio City Music Hall; the League of Legends world championship series, which we hosted for 4 sold-out nights at The Chicago Theatre, followed by 2 sold-out nights at The Garden; the first-ever UFC event in New York State, which took place at The World's Most Famous Arena and became the highest grossing single-night event in the venue's history; and the prestigious NCAA Basketball East Regional Finals, which returned to MSG for the second time in 4 years.

Looking ahead to fiscal 2018, we will continue to utilize the strength of our venues, markets and operational expertise to build on our booking success and have already attracted a number of noteworthy events.

Multi-night highlights include Phish, who just last week completed the Baker's Dozen, a 13-night run at Madison Square Garden. At Radio City, we are now in the midst of an equally impressive 16 show run by Dave Chappelle, who set a new record for the longest run by a comedian at the legendary theater.

On the multi-venue front, Harry Stiles will perform at 5 of our 7 venues over the next 12 months. In addition, over the coming months, The Garden and the Forum will both welcome Arcade Fire and Bruno Mars as well as legendary rock band Guns N' Roses, who will play these venues as part of the band's top grossing Not in This Lifetime Tour.

We have also continued to push to bring marquee events to our venues and look forward at the end of this month to hosting the MTV Video Music Awards for the second consecutive year, this time at the Forum. And in January 2018, music's biggest night will return to MSG and New York City for the first time in 14 years as The World's Most Famous Arena hosts the 60th Annual Grammy awards.

This past fiscal year, we also made important progress in expanding our portfolio of premium live experiences with 2 acquisitions. The first was our purchase of a controlling stake in Boston Calling Events, which this past Memorial Day weekend held its Annual Boston Calling Music Festival at the Harvard Athletic Complex, a new location that significantly expanded the Festival's capacity and content offerings.

The event was a success as Boston Calling made its transition to a major music Festival, welcoming tens of thousands of music fans. The Festival delivered strong attendance and sell-through, strong ticket and F&B per caps and terrific sponsorship results as, this year, our marketing partnerships group worked hand-in-hand with the Festival to expand its roster of sponsors.

We're proud of what we were able to accomplish with this year's Festival, both financially and creatively. We look forward to elevating this great event to an even higher level in fiscal 2018, and are also exploring additional growth opportunities with our new partners at Boston Calling.

Another key investment for the company this past year was our acquisition of a majority interest in TAO Group. As we previously discussed, we believe the company has meaningful growth potential as it expands its venue portfolio, both domestically and internationally.

We spoke on our last call about TAO Group entering the Los Angeles market with 4 new impressive venues: Tao, Avenue, Beauty & Essex and Luchini Pizzeria & Bar, which all opened to rave reviews. Last month, TAO Group added The Highlight Room at The Dream Hollywood Hotel, completing this 5-venue Hollywood complex and creating LA's biggest nightlife destination.

Looking ahead, TAO Group will also be part of the soon-to-open Moxy Times Square, offering a number of entertainment, dining and nightlife experiences throughout the hotel, including one of New York's largest all-season hotel rooftop lounges.

We're also eagerly anticipating the opening of TAO Group's second international venue as the company continues to make progress on its plans to bring one of its most popular and successful brands, Lavo, to Singapore. This restaurant, lounge and nightclub, will be located on the iconic rooftop of the Marina Bay Sands hotel. We look forward to sharing more in the months ahead.

In addition to TAO Group's venue expansion plans, we are also increasingly optimistic about the way MSG and TAO Group are working together to drive incremental growth in our respective businesses and see real inherent value in the ability to cross promote the premium assets and brands of both companies. This is particularly compelling due to the significant and growing market overlap between our 2 companies.

From a booking's perspective, TAO Group is now part of our dialogue with artists when they play our New York and Los Angeles venues as a potential post-event destination. And from a sales perspective, our discussions with companies regarding corporate hospitality now range from tickets and suites to venue rentals and entertainment dining and nightlife options through TAO Group.

We're also making progress on our venue expansion strategy. This includes our plans to bring a state-of-the-art venue to Las Vegas as well as our continued exploration of other key markets where we think our music and entertainment-focused venue strategy can be successful. We expect to have more to share in the coming months.

On the production's front, later this morning, we're hosting our annual Christmas in August event, kicking off our promotion of the Christmas Spectacular starring the Radio City Rockettes, which, last season, achieved record revenue, thanks to changes we made across the board to how we operate, market and sell the show.

This upcoming season marks the 85th year of this beloved production, and we look forward to another successful holiday run. The popularity of the Christmas Spectacular reinforces for us that we possess valuable brands in the Rockettes, a world-renowned precision dance team, and Radio City Music Hall, a legendary theater featuring the world's largest proscenium stage.

We're now taking a look at how we can leverage these brands in a fundamentally different way outside of our core Christmas Spectacular franchise. One option we're exploring is a streamlined production that can be nimble and flexible in terms of how and when it plays, furthering our objective of maximizing the utilization of our venues by enabling us to run this show around other live events at Radio City throughout the year. In light of this shift in focus with regard to the New York Spectacular, we concluded that a write-off was necessary. We'll share more about our future plans as they develop.

Turning to our sports franchises. Newly named President, Steve Mills, and General Manager, Scott Perry, along with the head coach, Jeff Hornacek, lead the Knicks into the upcoming season with an emphasis on building around the key pillars of youth, athleticism, teamwork and defense. Qualities which are exemplified in young star, Kristaps Porzingis; free agent signee, Tim Hardaway Jr.; Willy Hernangomez; and first-round draft choice, Frank Ntilikina.

The Rangers have also had a productive offseason, signing free agent defenseman, Kevin Shattenkirk; re-signing Brendan Smith and Mika Zibanejad; and making a trade to acquire the seventh overall pick in the NHL entry draft in order to select forward, Lias Andersson.

And the Liberty are entering the home stretch of their 2017 season, led by perennial All-Star, Tina James (sic - Charles) and Sugar Rodgers. The team is approaching the end of regular season and is seeking a third consecutive appearance in the WNBA playoffs.

In fiscal 2017, our sports segment realized growth across all of its key revenue lines, including a significant overall increase in media rights revenue, which, going forward, will continue to represent a significant, predictable and growing source of revenue for the company.

This past year, we also successfully executed our new Knicks and Rangers ticketing policies, driving a substantial change in the mix of ticket products sold, including fewer full season packages and more partial plans as well as individual and group tickets, all while our teams continue to play to at or near capacity crowds at The Garden.

For the 2017-'18 seasons, we are already seeing strong renewal rates for season tickets. And while these tickets still represent the majority of sales, we are continuing our strategy of thoughtfully increasing the sale of smaller ticket packages, which should continue to positively impact revenues while enabling us to further broaden our fan base.

With respect to marketing partnerships, fiscal 2017 represented another year of record revenue, reflecting the meaningful value we offer our partners across our portfolio of sports and entertainment assets and brands. During the year, we successfully reached new and expanded multiyear agreements with 2 of our signature marketing partners, Lexus and Anheuser-Busch.

The renewal process for our marquee and signature partners will continue over the next several years on a staggered basis, and we're pleased to share that we are nearing renewals with 2 additional signature partners as well as with other significant sponsors and hope to have more to say in the coming months.

Similarly, we also continue to make progress on new agreements for those events, Lexus and Signature Level Suite products that come up for renewal in fiscal 2018. At this stage, we have reached new agreements with solid, built-in annual escalators for most of the suites up for renewal this fall.

Similar to our ticketing strategy for the Knicks and Rangers, we will also explore thoughtfully and modestly increasing the number of suites licensed on a partial year basis, with the goal of enhancing suite revenue growth and broadening our customer base.

And finally, we talked earlier about the efforts we've made to expand our live experiences with opportunities that offer strong growth potential and fit with our core competencies.

In addition to the acquisitions we've had in our entertainment segment, 2 weeks ago, we announced an exciting addition to our sports offers -- offerings, as MSG acquired a controlling interest in Counter Logic Gaming, a leading North American esports organization with championship teams. This includes one of the original and most dominant teams in League of Legends, the industry's most popular game.

Over the last several years, we have witnessed the power and passion of esports firsthand, hosting several major events across our venues, including the 2015 North American League of Legends Championship Series summer finals at The Garden. The sold-out event was a first for The World's Most Famous Arena, and a sign that esports was ready to command sport's biggest stage.

We're now thrilled to be taking this next step with CLG, who took home the championship on that historic night. CLG is one of the most established and successful organizations in the industry, operating 8 teams across several well-known esports games, including League of Legends, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Super Smash Bros. Led by George Georgallidis, a former top League of Legends competitor, who remains one of the sport's most renowned global figures, CLG has built a proven track record of success over the last 5 years.

We look forward to utilizing our experience in sports team business operations, including in marketing partnerships, media rights, event operations, ticketing and merchandise, to help CLG build on its tremendous success and to play an active role in the development of this exciting industry.

In summary, we're pleased with the -- with our execution in fiscal 2017, which translated into terrific underlying growth across our core operations and the successful first steps in expanding our live experience offerings. As we look forward, we remain confident that the company is well positioned to drive attractive long-term growth and asset value creation for our shareholders.

With that, I will now turn the call over to Donna, who will take you through our financial results.

Thank you, Doc, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to start by touching on our full year results. On a reported basis for fiscal 2017, the company generated over $1.3 billion in revenue and $97.6 million in adjusted operating income.

Please note that fiscal 2017 revenues included $30.5 million in nonrecurring NHL and NBA distributions, while fiscal 2017 AOI was impacted by the same nonrecurring league distributions, as well as $42.3 million in net provisions for team personnel transactions and a $33.6 million noncash write-off of the remaining deferred production costs for the New York Spectacular.

The remainder of my comments will primarily be focused on our fourth quarter results as compared to the prior year period.

For the fiscal 2017 fourth quarter, the company generated $305.6 million in revenue, an increase of 40%, and an adjusted operating loss of $43.6 million. Results this quarter include: the impact of TAO Group and Boston Calling Events as a result of our investment in both companies; $15 million in nonrecurring NHL and NBA distributions; $35.2 million in net provisions for team personnel transactions; and a $33.6 million noncash write-off.

Turning to our business segments. At MSG Entertainment, fourth quarter revenues were $125.9 million, an increase of 50%. The increase was primarily due to the inclusion of operating results for TAO Group and Boston Calling Events. This was partially offset by lower overall event-related revenues at the company's venues and lower revenues for the New York Spectacular production, which did not run in the current year quarter.

With respect to TAO Group, I would remind you that the company's results are reported on a 3-month lag basis, with our fourth quarter financial results reflecting TAO Group's operating results for the 7.5-week period from February 1 through March 26, 2017, as the transaction closed on January 31, 2017. Furthermore, please also note that the calendar first and third quarters are seasonally lighter quarters for TAO Group as compared to its calendar second and fourth quarters.

Event-related revenues at the company's venues decreased in the fourth quarter, primarily as a result of fewer shows at The Garden, The Beacon Theatre and The Chicago Theatre, offset by higher revenues at Radio City Music Hall, results of a change in the mix of events at the venue as well as additional events.

However, as Doc noted earlier, our entertainment bookings business delivered a strong year, with increases in the overall number of events at our venues, leading to robust growth in event-related revenues and contributions for the full year.

MSG Entertainment's fiscal 2017 fourth quarter adjusted operating loss of $39.2 million increased by $26 million. Excluding the $33.6 million New York Spectacular write-off, MSG Entertainment's fourth quarter adjusted operating loss would have been $5.5 million, an improvement of $7.7 million versus the prior year quarter.

This improvement primarily reflects a lower operating loss for the New York Spectacular as a result of the show not running in the current year quarter and, to a lesser extent, the inclusion of operating results for TAO Group and Boston Calling Events. This was partially offset by lower overall event-related contribution from our venues and higher SG&A expense.

At MSG Sports, fourth quarter revenues were $179.6 million, an increase of 35%. The increase was due to higher league distributions, playoff-related revenues and, to a lesser extent, higher sponsorship and signage revenues and media rights fees from MSG Networks, partially offset by lower event-related revenues from other live sporting events and other net decreases.

The increase in league distributions primarily reflects $15 million in nonrecurring NHL and NBA distribution and, to a lesser extent, the impact of the NBA's new national media rights agreement. The increase in playoff-related revenues was primarily due to additional home playoff games as compared to the prior year period. Rangers played in 6-home playoff games this year as the team advanced to the second round of the playoffs versus 2 games in the year-ago quarter.

MSG's fourth quarter adjusted operating income was $14.5 million, a decrease of $3.9 million on a year-over-year basis. The decrease was due to operating expense growth outpacing the increase in revenue. The primary factor behind the increase in operating expenses was the $35.2 million in net provisions for team personnel transactions recorded in the current year quarter, reflected in both direct operating and SG&A expenses. This includes the impact of severance-related costs associated with the separation agreement with a team executive.

Other adjusted operating loss of $18.9 million improved slightly versus the prior year period, primarily reflects the absence of a $6.9 million reorganization charge recorded in the fiscal 2016 fourth quarter, offset by higher employee compensation and related benefits and other net increases.

Lastly, I would point out that starting with our fiscal 2017 fourth quarter, we are now disclosing the expense impact of purchase accounting adjustments. While these amounts are included in total company operating income results, they are excluded from the calculation of AOI.

For the fourth quarter, purchase accounting adjustments totaled nearly $12 million, about $9.5 million in direct operating expense and reflects expenses related to the increased valuation of TAO Group's inventory and leases, with the remaining $2.5 million of depreciation and amortization expense. The full amount of the purchase accounting adjustment related to the inventory step-up was expensed in the quarter.

Turning to our balance sheet. As of June 30, total unrestricted cash and cash equivalents was approximately $1.2 billion. In addition, there have been no borrowings made under either our $[115] million New York Rangers revolving credit facility or our $215 million New York Knicks credit facility. As a reminder, there also remains outstanding a $110 million 5-year term loan at the TAO Group level.

In terms of the company's share repurchase program, we did not repurchase shares during the fourth quarter. Total repurchases under our current authorization stand at just over 1.5 million shares for approximately $254 million, at an average price of about $168 per share. This amount represents 6% of total shares outstanding as of our spin date.

With that, I will now turn the call back over to Ari.

Thank you, Donna. Christie, can we open up the call for questions?

(Operator Instructions) And our first question comes from Brandon Ross with BTIG.

A couple of topics. First, on venue expansion, given your ongoing issues with AEG and the importance of bundling in LA, how strategic is London to you since The O2 is their real leverage point there? And how do you see the opportunity for competitive arena in London in general?

And then second topic. Oak View Group has now been around for a year. Nobody really talks about it. Can you talk a little bit about the larger opportunity there? And I think one of the most interesting pieces of that venture is the alliance of the 27 arenas that you have. What benefits have you seen from that? And what are you -- what additional ones do you foresee down the road? I know that's a lot.

Thanks, Brandon. Well, starting with venue expansion in London. First of all, I'm not going to comment on this call about AEG. I will say that we continue to explore select markets where we think we can replicate the success we've had with the Forum and an entertainment-only venue.

Vegas is the first market we have announced, and we are deep in the design process with Vegas. But we continue to explore other key entertainment markets, both domestically and internationally, where we think a large-scale music and entertainment-focused venue can be successful.

London is one of the biggest entertainment marketplaces in the world, and it would most certainly be an important marketplace for us to be looking at and an important part and piece of a strategic plan. But that's all I'll say on that.

To your point about the opportunity in London, as I said, it's one of the biggest entertainment marketplaces in the world. So yes, it is part of our focus.

Turning onto your question about OVG. First of all, OVG is led by Tim Leiweke, who is as capable and talented an executive in the greater entertainment space and specifically the arena and live entertainment space as we've ever known. So to have an affiliate company that's led by such a dynamic executive is advantageous in its own right.

Specifically, the benefits -- the Arena Alliance is basically an affiliated group of leading facilities across the nation, and it leverages the combined assets and expertise of its members to develop best-in-class practices for the arena industry. And we benefit directly from that.

We benefit in terms of advice and assistance across all best practices: ticketing strategies, premium seating and hospitality strategies, how to operate better, security issues, media rights. All of these things, the collective expertise of this alliance bring a lot of expertise to bear that we benefit from.

One specific benefit was they created a Walmart partnership across the alliance that we benefited from that we otherwise might not have. So we think that there -- we think that OVG is an incredibly interesting and evolving company that we get real advantages from our affiliation.

Your next question is from Bryan Goldberg of Bank of America.

I've got a couple. I'll start off with the New York Spectacular. I guess between the 2 write-offs and the P&L amortizations, the company has invested a lot of money in leveraging the Rockettes franchise beyond Christmas.

And I was just wondering, given your comments about the shift in orientation or direction you're taking with the New York Spectacular, what gives you confidence you'll be successful, I guess, with the next iteration of the franchise? And what level of commitment should we be expecting from the company? And then I've got 2 follow-ups.

Okay. Well, as we said in our prepared remarks, we think we have significant assets in Radio City Music Hall and the Rockettes. Radio City is unique. There's nothing like it in the world. The largest proscenium stage and the experience of Radio City is unlike anything in the world. And likewise, we think the Rockettes are unique. Nothing like them in the world. There's a -- they're a world-renowned brand, and audiences love seeing them perform.

What gives us confidence is the fact that the Radio City Christmas Spectacular has been successful for 85 years. It is a -- it's an incredibly successful franchise year after year that delivers very important results to our bottom line. And fans, audiences love and appreciate that show.

And while we've -- we may be diverting course in terms of a second franchise, our previous iterations have proven that there's an audience for this show. And so we're playing with the formula. We're playing with the formula because, if you look at the value that's driven by the original franchise, to be able to create a second franchise could have tremendous impact and value to us and our shareholders over the long term.

Okay. And then, I guess sticking on the Entertainment segment. I'll combine my last 2 questions, I guess, into one. I was wondering, could -- are you guys able to break out the revenue and AOI contribution from TAO and Boston Calling in the quarter? And then on Boston Calling, looking ahead, how does the show grow from here?

I'll let Donna handle the first part of that question.

So our first -- our fourth quarter results include TAO Group revenue of $34 million. You'll find additional information on operating results in the Form 10-Q, which we're filing later today. But I mentioned this in my prepared remarks, it's important to keep a few things in mind.

The operating results for TAO Group are reported on a 1 quarter lag basis. In addition, the results we're reflecting in our fourth quarter are not -- don't have a full quarter of TAO Group revenue and AOI, but only a 7.5-week period from February 1st through March 26th.

Also, we've mentioned previously on this call that the second and fourth quarter -- calendar quarters for TAO are the strongest. And by definition, the first and third quarters are a little bit weaker. So those things need to be also taken into consideration as you review the financials.

On Boston Calling, Boston Calling generated $16 million in revenue, and again, you'll find some additional operating results detail in the Form 10-K, which is being filed. As Doc mentioned on some of the metrics, we delivered good attendance, ticket per cap, F&B and a great slate of marketing partners on that event.

To the second part of your Boston Calling question, we look at Boston Calling this past year as pretty much an all-new offering. It shared the name of its previous iteration, but given the new location at Harvard and given the increased opportunities for attendance and content, we pretty much looked at it as a brand-new offering. And they were very successful with this brand-new offering.

As Donna mentioned, we delivered really strong attendance. We delivered strong ticket sales and F&B per caps. And we delivered a very robust slate of marketing partners. That said, we think that there's real possibilities for improvement of that specific event, which we are in the process of executing.

And we think that this -- with this operating unit, Boston Calling Events, and with the success of this specific event, we think that there's -- there are numerous opportunities to grow this asset and this operating group long term.

Your next question is from John Janedis with Jefferies.

Maybe 2 for me as well. First, you continue to add new residencies or multi-night series at your venues. You talked about Phish and Dave Chappelle. Can you talk maybe a little more though about how the economics for these productions compare to the more traditional concert business? And to what extent is there capacity for this to be a growing trend going forward?

Okay. Well, first of all, when you talk about residencies, you have to understand that residencies come in different forms. The 2 you referenced, Phish and the Dave Chappelle shows, are residencies that sit down in their respective venues for consecutive shows over a limited or condensed period of time.

These are really efficient models, because, first off, there's only 1 load-in and 1 load-out, and they're really efficient in terms of -- from a marketing standpoint as well. And they create truly, in our opinion, unique, momentous, even historic events.

Both Phish and Chappelle, this summer, have created huge stirs in the New York marketplace and well beyond. They've brought people from all over the country to witness these events. So we think they are advantageous from a financial standpoint from the regular touring shows that go through given marketplaces.

I would also say that our Seinfeld and Billy Joel residencies are also unique and extremely popular and efficient and profitable events that helped to establish our venue's brands in the marketplace. And they, likewise, are unique and momentous events in their own right, particularly with Billy Joel, as we look forward to some numbers that will create news in their own right.

So we're extremely pleased with our residencies. They're highly marketable shows, and they expand our base of events. They deliver great economics and advance our efforts and abilities to improve utilization at our venues. And they're very important to our brand.

I shared in our last call that we brought on board Darren Pfeffer from iHeartMedia to head our live business. And residencies are one of the important things that he is focused on. And he's been very effective and entrepreneurial in going about this, and we expect that to pay real dividends for us as we go forward. We have nothing specifically new to announce in that regard, but we are definitely and aggressively pursuing new residency opportunities.

Okay. And then maybe separately, I was hoping for a little more color on CLG. How do you think -- I know you touched on this, but how do you think about the opportunity to monetize it, whether it be from a sponsorship or media rights perspective? And do you see other opportunities to expand your presence in esports, either maybe as a venue or team owner?

Well, we just did expand our presence in esports with -- as a team owner by acquiring CLG. We're extremely excited about the CLG acquisition. I think it's a tremendous opportunity for us to partner with, frankly, one of the most successful organizations in this exploding industry. They bring top-tier esports teams, a great brand in the esports space as well as millions of dedicated fans across multiple social media and online platforms.

We -- and we think our ability to monetize and grow and expand and create a long-term asset for our company, the opportunities are robust. I think, overall, we think that esports is evolving more closely to resemble professional sports organizations and leagues like the ones we own, in the NBA and the NHL.

And I think this combination and this partnership with CLG, we're able to bring the expertise of decades of operating experience with those teams to this new space. That includes media rights, where we have extensive experience, and we think that we can help CLG effectively monetize those opportunities around both their live streaming content and other team-related content.

We think that we can bring marketing partnership, sponsorship expertise to CLG in ways that they haven't really scratched the surface of. And we think that there's the opportunity to expose our existing partners as well as new companies to this extremely valuable fan base, and thereby, enable them, aid them to meaningfully engage with a very difficult to reach, elusive and differentiated demo.

Likewise, in terms of live events, we have the venues and we have the ability to reach these fan bases, and we think we can leverage those assets as well to the benefit of both CLG and us. So generally speaking, we believe that no one understands these spaces better than we do.

And in addition, we're going to be hiring added resources at this company in terms of a head of esports. And we look forward to leveraging all of our resources to the advantage of CLG and MSG and help to grow this evolving and exploding space.

Your next question comes from Amy Yong with Macquarie.

So maybe a couple of questions as well. Just following up on the New York Spectacular, I think, Doc, you mentioned there is a shift in strategy. And I guess with the write-offs, should we assume that the show will return in 2018? And I guess, any sense on the number of shows? And also, it seems like you're making a lot of progress on the JV, any updates on how Azoff is going? And then I have one for Donna.

Okay. On the New York Spectacular, I -- we don't have anything specific to share in terms of when a new show would debut or in terms of the number of shows or how it would be structured. We're deep in a process of examining all of those issues currently. And as soon as we are ready to announce something specific, we will do so.

Switching to your Azoff question, I'm repeating things that I've said before, but Azoff and AMSG remains a very important strategic partner to us across the board. And the individual units of Azoff are performing extremely well. The management business is strong and is growing. The music rights business is very strong and, likewise, growing.

We've talked about OVG, Oak View Group and their success, and I think that you're going to be hearing a lot more about that company, and we very much like the performance of those companies. So we are more bullish than ever about what's happening under the umbrella of Azoff, and we appreciate and benefit from that partnership.

Great. And Donna, I think there's $270 million left in the buyback. You've been pretty active in previous quarters. I'm just wondering how you're thinking about it. And can you confirm whether or not you updated the 10b5 plan?

Amy, well, as you know, we -- one of our priorities as a company is to grow and to create long-term asset value for the shareholders. From time to time, as we explore these opportunities, it's prudent for us not to be buying back our stock. So while we didn't repurchase stock in the fourth quarter, we are very committed to the remainder of the plan.

We've repurchased nearly $150 million this year at an average price of $179 a share. You're correct on your numbers. We have approximately $270 million left. I think we're at $254 million year-to-date, and we're going to continue to be opportunistic and pursue our repurchasing program. I can't comment specifically on where we are with any filing though.

Your next question is from David Karnovsky with JPMorgan.

On TAO, I know it's very early on, but can you talk about any headway you've made in leveraging their expertise in hospitality across your own portfolio?

And then secondly, I think today marks exactly 1 year on your Townsquare investment. Financially, this appears to have worked out nicely, but is there any update you can give us strategically on what you've done with them so far?

Okay. Well, as I said in the prepared remarks, we are actively collaborating with our colleagues over at the TAO Group to mutually leverage our portfolios.

I don't have anything specific to report in terms of any specific programs at this point, other than to say what I said before, which is we are packaging the TAO hospitality offerings along with our live event offerings and hospitality in new and innovative ways. And we are seeing real traction in the marketplace, which we hope to report on in the not-too-distant future.

But there is a lot of traction and synergies with these collective assets, and we are being creative and entrepreneurial in how we offer them to a pretty robust marketplace.

Moving on to your Townsquare question. We are a year into our relationship, and we're pleased with our investment, and we're pleased with our partnership. I have nothing specific to announce or no specific updates with respect to that partnership at this time, but we remain very pleased with our investment and our partnership.

Your next question comes from David Joyce with Evercore.

I wanted to drill down some more on the trends on the entertainment side of the venues. Given you had some strong revenue results there, even with some venues contributing less, could you talk about the comparability of number of live events year-over-year in the various venues, the attendance per event comparability at the venues, and any trends in improving the event yield through more dynamic pricing of -- pricing higher in front of the house and less in the back to improve capacity?

Well, looking at our full year results, we had a great year in bookings, a year-over-year increase in numbers of events, year-over-year increase in attendance, in revenues and AOI.

While our fourth quarter was -- result -- our fourth quarter results were impacted by the timing of tours, I think our strong annual results clearly illustrate the fact that touring is important to artists as well as audiences and fan bases. And we like the trends in live entertainment, and we like how our new fiscal year is unfolding in terms of our live entertainment performance. And we think it's a momentum that's going to continue on forward.

Your final question comes from Brandon Ross with BTIG.

Just a housekeeping follow-up on CLG. What was the dollar expenditure there for that investment?

Okay. Well, we're not going to get into the specifics in terms of the numbers with respect to our acquisition. But I will say, we think we acquired CLG at a very attractive valuation and structured a very well-structured acquisition. And we think that it will generate real attractive returns and real long-term value for our shareholders, and there's real opportunities for growth.

That was our final question, and I will now return the floor to Ari Danes for any additional or closing remarks.

Thank you for joining us. We look forward to speaking with you on our fiscal 2018 first quarter earnings call. Have a good day.

Thank you. This does conclude today's conference call. You may now disconnect.