Raw takes a tumble as lots of people watched LeBron & the Lakers get swept

WWE caught a break last Monday when there were no NBA Playoff games airing opposite Raw.

The ratings gods weren’t smiling on them last night (May 22), however. Raw drew Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals as competition, and a whole lot of people were interested in seeing LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers either get swept or attempt to start and unprecedented comeback against the Denver Nuggets (it turned out to be the former, but King James & company at least made it a close game). ESPN’s coverage of the end of the Lakers season was watched by more than eight million, and drew a 2.83 among 18-49 year olds.

Head-to-head with that for most of its runtime, Raw averaged an audience of 1,638,000 with a .54 in the key demo. That’s a 4.5% week-to-week viewership decline, with a 7% drop with the 18-49 set. Raw finished fifth among cable originals, with the top four all related to the basketball game. The night’s lone hockey playoff game, a 1-0 nail-biter between Florida and Carolina, finished right behind WWE with 1.54 million viewers and a .48 in the demo.

Raw’s numbers peaked in the 9pm ET block. Raw saw the usual third hour drop off, but nothing catastrophic. Here are the total audience and 18-49 numbers for each hour...

Hour One: 1.72 million / .54
Hour Two: 1.69 million / .58
Hour Three: 1.50 million / .50

Next week will be the Night of Champions fallout show, and it should again be free of NBA competition (unless the Boston Celtics can mount their own history-making comeback to force a Game 7 against the Miami Heat). There could be a hockey game if the Dallas Stars can get a couple wins this week against the Vegas Golden Knights.

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