WWE Raw draws record low viewership against massive NFL number
With the opening night of Monday Night Football doing record numbers, Raw last night took a beating.
The Buffalo Bills vs. New York Jets game that went into overtime did 22,615,000 viewers between ESPN, ABC, and ESPN2. It was the second-largest MNF audience in years.
Raw took the hit, drawing the lowest total viewership number in the show’s nearly 31-year history for a regular episode on USA Network with 1.35 million viewers and a 0.40 rating in 18-49. The only Raw episode to ever do a lower viewership number was a Best Of show.
The 0.40 would be Raw’s second lowest rating of the year.
The football number is the complete explanation for the huge drop, although the episode had no big hook as far as a huge main event, since Rhea Ripley vs. Raquel Rodriguez was the only big match announced ahead of time, and it wasn’t coming off a PPV.
Raw was down 21 percent from last week in viewers, down 22 percent in 18-49, and down 26 percent in 18-34.
From last year, Raw was down 21 percent in viewers from the 2022 Monday Night Football opener (which did 19.76 million viewers). It was down eight percent in 18-49 and down 22 percent in 18-34. Factoring in that cable lost homes, the real percentage drops would be 16 percent in viewers, a one percent increase in 18-49, and a 14 percent drop in 18-34.
The third-hour drop was not any different from a usual week, but the 1.25 million audience for the main event was the lowest in the history of the show.
The three hours were:
- 8 p.m. 1.37 million viewers
- 9 p.m. 1.40 million viewers
- 10 p.m. 1.29 million viewers
