WCW’s merchandise sales were “abysmal” prior to the formation of the New World Order in 1996, according to Eric Bischoff.
The group, initially consisting of Hulk Hogan, Kevin Nash, and Scott Hall, would usher in an era of popular heel factions, which would inspire the formation of D-Generation X in 1997.
During his “83 Weeks Podcast,” Bischoff addressed the influence the nWo had on WCW and claimed that the group’s merchandise would exceed anything that came before. He said,
“WCW never sold merchandise until the nWo. Yes, I should take that back because people hang on every word I say and troll me afterward. Did WCW sell merchandise at arenas? Yes. It was abysmal. Abysmal. It wasn’t worth the time and the expense of loading things onto a truck and then driving 300 miles and setting up at an arena and hoping it would sell. You lost money. You lost money when you had to fill the truck up with gas. That’s how successful WCW merchandise was before nWo.
“It’s not that we didn’t want it, it’s just we didn’t have anybody that was over enough to drive it. The nWo changed that. Now, it wasn’t driven by — the idea of splitting up nWo into Wolfpac, or LWO, or whatever, was not driven by merchandise considerations. It was driven by story and driven by the fact it was so over. All boats rose with the higher tide that the nWo created. nWo was a tsunami. It wasn’t a high tide. It was a fricking tsunami.”
Over two decades after the demise of WCW, nWo merch remains popular among fans, with shirts featuring the iconic logo often popping up in WWE crowds.
