Make matches matter

[Fox]

Originally Posted by dingdongyo an argument against this is kids are the vast majority of the audience. they drop millions of dollars on this guy as a hero. could a turn pay off? if every adult that welcomed it bought 10 bad guy cena shirts, maybe. i would be interested by it too. but i'm not buying 10 fucking shirts for it.

But going back to my previous analogy, that's no different than what WCW was in 95/96, and even going forward all the way to 98. I was only 9 or 10 around that time.

When Hogan turned they sold MORE merchandise. nWo merchandise exploded off the shelves. Everyone had an nWo t-shirt. But more so than that, the people who stood up to face off against Hogan and his nWo cronies sold merchandise too. They became bigger stars just by opposing Hogan and the nWo. Sting, DDP, Goldberg - these guys sold tons of merchandise.

Yes, there is a potential for merchandise loss if John Cena turned. It's almost unavoidable. But as long as his new character also came with a new logo and new gimmick, then that means new t-shirts, and fans of the heel Cena character will eat that stuff up. And if the Summer of Punk proved anything, it's that as long as you have a cool t-shirt like the Best In the World shirt, the guy who goes against John Cena is going to sell merchandise, too.

People look at the situation of Cena turning heel with a very narrow point of view. "Oh, they'll lose merchandise sales and they'll lose this and they'll lose that." What people don't realize is that a Cena heel turn would be good for business because it means better storylines, the elevation of guys into Cena's spot and merchandise sales for those guys, and a huge potential for better PPV buyrates and better TV ratings. What they would lose in the kiddie Cena fan base (which is growing up into teenhood very rapidly, I might add) would be gained back two-fold in other areas.