WWE For Kids: Good Business Decision?

One day when I was about seven years old (sometime in 1997), I passed my parents' notorious newspaper stack on the dining room table. I'd gotten used to seeing this stack by now, but the paper on the top caught my attention.

There, on the front page of The Baltimore Sun's sports section, was a picture of  "Stone Cold" Steve Austin locking Bret "Hitman" Hart in an excruciating Boston Crab. I was thrilled; WWF had been my latest obsession, and I was head over tails to see it not only getting coverage, but to see a front page picture of two of my favorite wrestlers!

But when I read the article, I was slightly less thrilled. Though it made note of wrestling's rising popularity and the increasing quality of storylines, it also had pointed out that it was growing more violent and the storylines were growing more sexual.

In essence, it was becoming more adult. And children—at least those under 13 and 14—shouldn't be watching this once-kid-friendly fare anymore.

My parents, of course, read it. It was the first time they'd read this sort of write-up about wrestling, and it planted seeds of reservations inside their minds. It was the beginning of the on-going persuasion war I had to mount to be able to "keep" wrestling; that is, to be able to still watch it and still buy merchandise.

And it wouldn't get any easier; in the years that would come, they'd only read more such write-ups...in Newsweek, in TV Guide, in Reader's Digest, etc.

In the end, I won; I convinced them I was mature enough to handle it. But some of my other friends weren't so lucky in their battles. Considering its enormous popularity and the share of media attention (mostly negative) it had received, wrestling had now unquestionably been branded as raunchy, violent, and—most importantly—adult.

And for all intents and purposes, it appeared that Vince McMahon was fine with this. He encouraged this image, and had his talent and PR folks say at every opportunity that this was for adults and older teenagers, and that the days of "saying your prayers and taking your vitamins are passe."

But now, they've put the gears suddenly into reverse: all WWE programming is now PG-rated. Their top hero, John Cena, is a crossbreed of Hulk Hogan's immortality and the old-school "hero-to-children" image of Bret Hart. They now have a magazine called "WWE for Kids." The word "ass" gets bleeped, and intentional blood is now banned from the airwaves.

Obviously, this is to make up for the bleeding of the 18-35 male demographic, declining revenues, and a slump in popularity overall. But the question remains: is this move actually effective for business?

It seems that in some ways, it's worked. Ratings have stabilized to an extent, and WWE for Kids turned a profit in its first year of existence.

But overall, I'm not so sure. See, even during the Attitude era, when it garnered this reputation and had negative media attention, a fair amount of kids were still watching. WWE action figures still sold well, and so did the video games (though these benefited from the teenaged male demo too).

By definition, all of these were kids who had parents who either 1.) trusted their maturity (like mine) or 2.) just didn't care at all. In other words: these are the kids that'd be watching wrestling today anyway, regardless of whether the content is "adult."

The other kids that weren't allowed to watch (a larger chunk I'd argue) were the ones whose parents believed it to be too adult. And almost all parents today were alive and quite conscious when the Attitude era had its run; this is significant, because the Attitude era was really the last time that wrestling got any sustained mainstream coverage.

It was during this period that wrestling got its "adult" tag. And for most parents today, this tag is gonna stick for a LONG time. More than likely (unless they're fans themselves), these parents aren't aware of the minutiae of WWE policy, and don't know that WWE has become family friendly and PG again.

Here's my point: the WWE isn't going to gain too many child fans that wouldn't already be watching in the first place. Overall, I think most parents will still be wary of wrestling and won't let their kids watch; and presumably, these kids are the ones the WWE are after.

And frankly, I just don't see it working.

Furthermore, this new kid-friendly product is only going to alienate older fans who've stuck with WWE and still enjoy the product. The whole point of the Attitude era was that it gained a substantial amount of 18-35ers for WWE...18-35ers that weren't watching during the kid-friendly "New Generation" period from 1994-96, when Bret Hart was giving away sunglasses and Shawn Michaels called his fans his "Kliq."

Overall, I think it's a net negative for WWE. They're appealing to a demographic that probably can't be enlarged that much at the expense of a demographic that they're already losing...and require in order to stay viable.

Put in political terms, it's like what happens when a party appeals solely to its base; passion may go up and that base may be ready to march, but ultimately it (usually) translates in electoral failure, because the middle is driven away and potential new converts aren't won over.

Now, there's no question: the Attitude era has run its course. You can't bring it back, and you can't have "Attitude Lite." The WWE is right insofar that it needs to move on, and by no means am I arguing for the resurrection of a dead horse.

What I am arguing is that WWE needs to become adult in a different way. They can have complex storylines that challenge and blur traditional notions of "good" and "bad," but don't require cursing, stripping, raunchiness, or degeneracy. They can have multidimensional characters that aren't hokey caricatures, but at the same time aren't degenerates or deviants.

Even sexuality can be touched upon, so long as its done subtly and in a way where its implied but not overtly suggested. Think of dramas and sitcoms in the 1970s, where sexuality certainly played a role, but it was an underlying one and was never front-and-center.

As far as I can tell, this hasn't really been done. WWE tried ULTRA-sleazy(Al Wilson, necrophilia, etc), they tried ULTRA shocking (Vince's "death," Edge and Lita live sex, etc), and when those failed, they tried (and still are trying) to go back to stagey, larger-than-life characters aimed towards kids and overly simplistic story lines.

I haven't seen WWE take an intellectually adult approach.

One may argue that wrestling can't really get that intellectual. But there was once an argument that wrestling could never make it out of the territories; that'd it never be considered entertainment; that it could never be considered adult entertainment; and that it could never touch on the subjects that WWE did during the attitude era.

Certainly, it can become more cerebral. Or they can at least try; because so far, the PG approach hasn't worked and it probably won't. Any kids watching would most likely be watching anyway; if the WWE wants to turn a profit (and produce quality TV), they need to go adult...and in a smart way.