WWE Raw draws best ratings since August 2021
Due to huge gains with women, Raw’s WrestleMania 38 go-home show did the show’s best numbers since just before the 2021 NFL season began.
The episode averaged 1.98 million viewers overall and drew a 0.55 rating in 18-49, with the first two hours topping two million viewers before a fairly significant third-hour drop.
The male 18-49 numbers were almost identical to last week (354,000 last week to 349,000 this week), but female numbers were up 34 percent from last week (204,000 to 273,000), which is where the big gains came from.
The show easily took first place in 18-49, but in a rarity, did lose to a non-news program for overall viewers as the North Carolina State vs. Connecticut women’s NCAA basketball tournament game on ESPN did 2.04 million viewers and a 0.41 in 18-49.
Notably, Raw did a 0.41 in women 18-49 to 0.31 for the women’s game.
Raw was second in women 18-49 behind Below Deck on Bravo, first in men 18-49, first in 18-34, second behind Below Deck in women 12-34, and first in men 12-34.
Raw was 14th in total viewers behind the basketball game and 12 news shows.
The last Raw episode to pull these numbers was on August 23 of last year.
The numbers were up from the 1.77 million viewers and 0.50 rating that Raw drew last week.
Last night’s show was pushed around Roman Reigns and Brock Lesnar appearing, and was essentially a show-long WrestleMania commercial. It was Reigns first appearance on Raw in months.
WWE Evil, covering Reigns, which followed Raw on USA Network, did 631,000 viewers and a 0.18 in 18-49 and placed 16th for the night.
Just as women were the biggest gainers, they also were the ones who didn’t hold the audience to hour three. As far as the first-to-third hour decline, women 18-49 were down 16 percent while men stayed even, teenage girls dropped three percent which is better than usual, teenage boys dropped 46 percent, and people over 50 dropped 14 percent.
The three hours were:
- 8 p.m. 2.05 million viewers
- 9 p.m. 2.10 million viewers
- 10 p.m. 1.79 million viewers