WWE Raw ratings up despite historic NCAA women’s basketball competition
Raw on Monday night averaged 1.78 million viewers and drew a 0.59 rating in the 18-49 demo for a show built around The Rock and Roman Reigns.
Raw was fourth for the night on cable behind two NCAA Elite Eight women’s college basketball tournament games and the pre-game show.
The reason for the low number was due to women’s college basketball on ESPN. The Iowa vs. LSU game built around Caitlin Clark, against the first 90 minutes of Raw, did 12.30 million viewers with a 3.08 in 18-49, which is at the level of an NFL game.
Even with the decline in cable, this was the highest number in the history of women’s college basketball, and with Iowa winning the game, a similar if not better number would be expected on Friday night for their upcoming game against Connecticut. Fortunately for WWE, that game doesn’t start until 9:30 p.m., but there is a South Carolina vs. North Carolina State Final Four game going against most of SmackDown.
Raw, due to going commercial-free in the first hour and having Rock, Reigns, Seth Rollins, and the Bloodline in a long segment, actually did a strong first hour with 1.95 million viewers and a 0.65 rating in 18-49.
Because the first hour number was helped so much by The Rock and Reigns and being commercial-free, the show dropped over the next two hours with a 16 percent first to third hour drop, much larger than usual. Even though both Rock and Reigns appeared in the post-match angle in the Seth Rollins vs. Solo Sikoa main event, not enough of the audience knew it.
The last 90 minutes went against the Connecticut vs. USC game that did 6.72 million and a 1.81.
Raw was up three percent in viewership from last week, which also went against Iowa women’s basketball, as well as up four percent in 18-49.
From one year ago the comparison looks bad because WrestleMania was a week earlier, so Raw was down 21 percent in viewers and down 22 percent in 18-49. Even factoring in homes lost by cable, the drop would be 17 percent in viewers and down 14 percent in 18-49. But next week’s Raw after Mania will be way up from the show last year.
The three hours were:
- 8 p.m. 1.95 million viewers
- 9 p.m. 1.76 million viewers
- 10 p.m. 1.64 million viewers
