WWE Raw falls to lowest viewership since July, demo holds up against two NFL games

Originally published at WWE Raw falls to lowest viewership since July, demo holds up against two NFL games

WWE Raw felt the effect of airing against two NFL games on Monday night as the show was the least-watched episode since the 4th of July.

The September 19th edition of Raw from San Jose averaged 1,593,000 viewers and approximately 583,000 (0.45) in the 18-49 demographic, according to Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily.

Raw dropped by 7% in overall viewership and it was the least-watched episode since July 4th. In the 18-49 demo, the show was up by a small margin from last week from 575,000 to 583,000.

Raw sustained a significant drop of 15% among Adults 18-34, which was its lowest amount in that demo since July 4th and second-lowest since May 1st. Raw gained 12% among Adults 35-49 but Adults 50+ declined by 11% to 0.79 and thus, hurt the overall viewership figure.

The show ranked fifth among cable originals due to ESPN’s Monday Night Football coverage of the Buffalo Bills vs. Tennessee Titans that aired on ESPN and ESPN 2. The game averaged 6.57 million viewers and 2.14 in 18-49 on ESPN with the simulcast on ESPN 2 averaging 1.35 million and 0.47 respectively.

Monday was a unique week as there were two NFL games airing as ABC carried the Philadelphia Eagles vs. Minnesota Vikings. This meant that Raw aired against two NFL games from 8:30 p.m. ET until 10:34 p.m. when the Bills vs. Titans game ended. The game averaged 12.9 million viewers and 3.81 in 18-49 to dominate all of television on Monday night.

Raw opened with 1,709,000 viewers and 0.46 in the 18-49 demographic with the show starting with the United States title match between Bobby Lashley and Seth Rollins that aired prior to the start of the NFL game on ABC.

The second hour fell in viewership to 1,623,000 but the demo was flat at 0.46 and the third hour fell to 1,449,000 viewers and 0.42 in the demo and featured the main event between Bayley and Alexa Bliss.

In Canada, the show averaged 182,000 viewers and 72,000 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 306 and ranked third for the night among sports programs behind both NFL games, which is a very good showing despite Raw dropping 16% in viewership and 40% in the demo from last week.

Four decent-to-large markets in Buffalo, Minneapolis, Philly and Nashville (and don’t forget, the Titans used to be in Houston. I know a ton of Titans fans who didn’t ditch the Oilers when they moved). Multiple key fantasy football guys in Allen, Henry, Jefferson and Hurts. Doesn’t even matter that the earlier game was an absolute squash.

The lesson? Just book your show, don’t try to compete.

Buffalo is a large market? Their stadium is half full of fans from Toronto lol

I actually didn’t realize that Buffalo is second smallest NFL market: Sports TV market size chart (NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL) - Sports Media Watch

Although this list is a bit deceptive, because Green Bay is considered the smallest, but it doesn’t include Milwaukee, which is obviously Packers country since they don’t have a team.

Buffalo is a tiny market but they’re a hot team so will eat up a lot of viewers

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NFL is king, it is what it is.

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If you love football, Josh Allen is appointment viewing right now. And that’s coming from a Pats fan.

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If you love gambling, football is appointment viewing right now. And that’s coming from someone who got crushed in Wk 2.

There is no legal online sports wagering in Florida but I was in NY/NJ for the past weekend. Every billboard is Draftkings/FanDuel, you name it. I’d be curious what it is like in your respective metro markets but it’s unavoidable and they are offering a lot of the freebies to get people in. This is no doubt translating to viewing of games. Especially with the way people can gamble on props and such. It’s like fantasy on steroids. Thoughts?

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You’re absolutely correct. They legalized sports betting in NYC few months ago. So this is the first football season with legalized betting in NYC. I work in Brooklyn and everyone at work from young/old, male/female, starting salary employees to management is betting on sports.

Sports betting is becoming a huge industry as more people get into it and more people start betting “above board” rather than through nefarious means. And I’d be willing to bet (zing!) that this effects the primetime games more than anything else… everybody bets the Thursday nighter, and everybody uses the Sunday and Monday night games to either try to recover losses or to spend what they won on Sunday afternoon.

So I’ll say it again… just book your show and forget about the ratings after the Super Bowl!

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