Sphere Entertainment Stock Gains 23% As Hype Builds Around Namesake Venue

Seeing is believing for some investors in Sphere Entertainment Co., the developer of the new state-of-the-art venue, The Sphere, in Las Vegas.

Shares of Sphere Entertainment soared 22.7% this week after the world saw the first videos of the dazzling display created by the 580,000 square feet of programmable LED “pucks” on Exosphere, the exterior of the 366-foot tall, spherical venue. The mesmerizing light show received heavy media coverage — from CNN, NPR, USA Today, The Guardian and Daily Mail, among many others — and was shared widely on social media. The buzz helped Sphere Entertainment’s market cap grow to $919 million — a more than $170 million increase.

U2 launches The Sphere on Sept. 29 with a 25-date residency that runs through Dec. 16. As of Friday, the Sept. 29 show is sold out, and the only available tickets for the next two dates cost $501 apiece. The Sphere’s other programming is Postcards from Earth, an immersive experience created by filmmaker Darren Aronofsky that’s meant to showcase the venue’s technological capabilities.

Sphere Entertainment was one of eight stocks in Billboard’s Global Music Index to post gains this week. The index improved 1%, beating the S&P 500 (down 1.2%), Nasdaq composite (-0.9%), the U.K.’s FTSE 100 (down 1.5%) and South Korea’s KOSPI composite index (down 3.6%). Stocks fell on Friday (July 7) as investors feared that the Labor Department’s June jobs report — which showed wages were stronger than expected — might increase the likelihood the Federal Reserve will resume interest rate increases to cool the economy and ward off inflation.

Two radio stocks were also big winners this week. Shares of iHeartMedia and Cumulus Media increased 9.3% and 8.5%, respectively. Although both stocks are down sharply in 2023 — iHeartMedia has lost 35.1%, Cumulus is off 28.3% — both have experienced a string of successful weeks. Shares of iHeartMedia have gained 66.5% in the last six weeks. Cumulus Media shares have improved 37.8% over that span.

Warner Music Group, the index’s only other stock with a high single-digit gain this week, improved 7.4% to $28.01. That pared WMG’s year-to-date loss to 20%.