A combination of factors led to WWE Raw doing its strongest viewership since the Superstar Shakeup on Monday night.
Despite huge competition from the Golden State vs. Portland NBA playoff game, Raw did its highest number since April 15th with 2,521,000 viewers on the USA Network.
They were up 7% from last week, which is more impressive than it sounds because last week there was no NBA game. This week, the NBA attracted 7,788,000 viewers, which was the most-watched playoff game Raw has faced this year.
The show began with 2,681,000 viewers in the first hour, it fell to 2,583,000 in the second hour and declined 11% in the third down to 2,299,000 viewers. Not everything was rosy, given the show still had a 14% drop from start-to-finish.
The number holding up as well as it did against the NBA can be attributed to several factors. They were coming off Money in the Bank and teased a cash-in by Brock Lesnar throughout the show to set up the main event with Seth Rollins & Kofi Kingston facing Bobby Lashley & Baron Corbin. It also helped that the basketball game didn’t begin until the second hour of Raw.
The year-to-year decline was only 5% from the same week in 2018.
Overall, this should be considered a very good number against heavy competition.
