The first Monday Night Football game of the season provided a major hit to WWE Raw’s viewership.
The September 11 episode from Norfolk averaged 1,353,000 viewers, which would be the show’s lowest viewership in its history for a first-run episode as there was a ‘Best of’ show on December 26, 2022, which averaged 1.11 million viewers. (Brandon Thurston at Wrestlenomics)
The culprit was the first Monday Night Football game of the season between the Buffalo Bills and New York Jets, which aired across Disney’s platforms. The game attracted 22,645,000 viewers across ABC, ESPN, ESPN 2 (ManningCast), and ESPN Deportes and was up 14% from last year’s season opener across the same networks. (Sports TV Ratings)
Raw averaged 1,367,000 and 0.38 in the demo in the first hour, it had a small growth to 1,401,000 and 0.43 in the demo for hour two and fell to 1,292,000 and 0.40 for the final hour of the program. The third hour of Raw narrowly avoided being the lowest hour in the show’s history, which remains 1,263,000 viewers for hour three on December 5, 2022.
In the 18-49 demographic, the show saw a 22% decline with 527,000 viewers (0.40) with males dropping from 476,000 to 383,000 and females falling from 197,000 to 144,000 this week. It was Raw’s lowest 18-49 audience since November 28, 2022.
Adults 18-34 sustained a 26% decrease including females dropping from 87,000 to 50,000. It would be the lowest audience in this demo for Raw since May 1, 2022.
Adults 35-49 dropped by 20% to 357,000 viewers – the lowest average since June 12, 2023.
In Canada, Raw fell 22% in viewership with 205,400 viewers and declined 19% in the 25-54 demographic with 102,300 viewers on Sportsnet 360. Raw ranked #5 among sports programs on Monday in the country and #3 in the demo behind the Buffalo Bills vs. New York Jets and Toronto Blue Jays vs. Texas Rangers.
