the opportunity to tell the stories in the way we want to tell them. In Brock Lesnar ' s case it was really a special case that we are allowing him to do this fight [ against Mark Hunt on July 9 ]. But like you said it ' s not really a crosspromotional opportunity, but we are allowing him to participate in that fight.
We are not supporting the fight necessarily but, again, it ' s not a competitor to us and the more that our superstars, that ' s how we refer to our talent, the more they do outside of WWE, the more awareness it generates and the broader the audience can be that is then brought back into our properties. So we recognize the value of that.
O ' Reilly: I wanted to ask about WWE Network and how it ' s performing. What expectations did you set at the start and now where are you at?
McMahon: It is now our fastest-growing and second most-profitable business, behind television rights and licensing. For WrestleMania, we announced 1.8 million subscribers and in just two years that ' s not too shabby.
Our whole content proposition, it ' s like it functions almost exactly like Netflix, except you get a little bit more bang for your buck. So we like to say it ' s like Netflix only better, if you ' re a WWE fan, because not only do we offer the VOD content, which we currently have over 5,000, which we continue to add our library to. We create original programming. We also offer our live, monthly specials, our pay-per-view specials, for incredible value of $ 9.99 a month, versus $ 59 and up in the US.
Also, we have a linear channel, so you can turn on and watch it just like a regular, pre-programmed channel, or you can have the customized experience. It really is very unique that way and it was one of the first to market prior to HBO and a couple of the other big launches.
O ' Reilly: How do you treat rights licensing when it comes to things like Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat— these are huge distribution channels that media companies are learning how to use and monetize. For example, certain sports companies like the NFL have cut deals with Twitter, are you trying to do that kind of thing as well— selling on rights as opposed to just putting your content out there for free? How do you divide it up?
McMahon: Our whole content distribution system is really a three-pronged approach. We have AVOD, which is advertising-funded video on demand, like YouTube, where
we are actually consistently one of the top three mostviewed YouTube channels in the world. We are the number one sports channel on YouTube, beating FIFA and NFL, ESPN, NBA, everybody. So that ' s the AVOD piece Then of course our television rights distribution, internationally, because we are in 180 countries and 25 languages.
Then the WWE network, which is our biggest focus as a company right now.
O ' Reilly: So when you look at those social channels, it ' s about them being advertising-funded?
McMahon: We also recognize the value of the share of voice, so we utilize a content ecosystem and it doesn ' t matter to us where our fans enter in that ecosystem. We are platform agnostic: we want to be everywhere so our fans can consume our content any time any place anywhere and on any device.
So whether it is TV or our live events, which is also an experiential opportunity, which is more and more what the millennial audience want, but also for families because families can go and it ' s affordable. It ' s not so ridiculously overpriced that you can ' t take your family and enjoy it. And we come to you. We have over 400 live events every year, so we are bringing our product to you. Then we have digital and social, I mentioned YouTube, but also Facebook is a huge partner for us. So is Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat is absolutely a key focus for us as well.
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