Raw ratings (checks notes) rise against NFL Playoff game

For the first time ever, Raw went head-to-head with an NFL playoff game on Mon., Jan. 17.

Even before the numbers came in from the weekend games (including the eye-popping figure that more than 40 million watched Sunday’s Dallas Cowboys/San Francisco 49ers contest), many were predicting historic lows for WWE and USA.

Surprise!

Raw’s audience was virtually unchanged from the previous week. Monday night’s 1.613 million just 1% less than Jan. 10. The rating among 18-49 year olds actually went up. The .43 average across the show’s three hours was a 10% improvement from the week before.

Here’s the hourly breakdown:

Hour One: 1.734 million / .47
Hour Two: 1.650 million / .43
Hour Three: 1.456 million / .40

The only thing that outperformed Raw was the Los Angeles Rams win over the Arizona Cardinals on ESPN. But if we’re looking for explanations for better than expected numbers for the red brand, it could be because the game didn’t do quite as well as some suspected it would. Not that more than 23 million viewers and 6 rating across ABC, ESPN & ESPN2 are anything to scoff at. But it’s roughly the same as what College Football Playoff Final did on Jan. 10.

Or maybe folks were just really invested in this year’s Royal Rumble build? We’ll see what happens next week when there’s not football competition for Raw.

For complete results and this week’s Raw live blog click here. To read a recap & review of the night’s events click here. For video highlights of the show click here.

Numbers via Showbuzz Daily