Forbes Article: Is John Cena best for business?

This is a VERY interesting read

http://ift.tt/1j6HT8v



There is an entire article to read in that link, but take notice of this chart..







So the gist is, since 2009, whenever Orton or Punk have held the belt, business has generally improved. Whenever Cena holds the belt, business declines. Interesting. The most interesting thing is that the best business WWE has done since 2009 was when they gave Punk the title in 2011, BUT, when they started booking Cena in the main events over Punk, business quickly started declining again.



Wow. Never thought I'd see that.





The article ends with the following:

Quote:

And curiously enough, in-story COO Triple-H’s repetitive claims that Orton ought to be the face of the company appear to ring true. When Orton wears the championship belt, WWE’s revenues tend to climb. Then again, company performance was all over the place during CM Punk’s 434-day reign, and that may be the only proof we need that WWE’s in-ring champion doesn’t actually have much impact on the company’s revenue. To reiterate, this is obviously far from a scientific study. WWE’s total revenues include segments like DVD sales and WWE Studios, which have little to do with the ongoing in-ring action. Plus this study only looks at the revenue side; perhaps a further analysis would show that WWE’s profits surge under Cena’s title reigns. But a brief look at the numbers suggests that, popular as he is, Cena being the WWE champion isn’t necessarily the best thing for business. And who knows, maybe that means Cena’s latest title run has more to do with in-ring story telling than cashing in on young fans, and maybe, just maybe, that means he’ll do something interesting for once.

I guess Punks numbers dropped when he turned heel as champ or was that when the whole Cena vs People Power storyline was taking over everything and Punk was Champ but not closing out shows? Interestingly enough, when Punk was actually starting to main event shows again (Q3 2012), revenue improved. When Punk got the title, revenue started to peak.



I'm confused because if I recall (I might be wrong someone correct me) CM Punk was actually losing viewers in ratings during a time of his long reign. So I'm not clear on how revenue would rise? (Or maybe thats around the time it was dropping like the chart states)



NOTE: I actually like John Cena but this was eye opening



What do you guys think of this Forbes article?



Are you surprised that The Rocks 3 month reign was the highest revenue WWE had Circa-2009?!