A Stellar Royal Rumble Didn't Help Raw's Viewership

TheSportster

By Josh Coulson

Published Feb 1, 2018

Despite a strong Royal Rumble pay-per-view featuring Ronda Rousey, Raw's viewership fell big from the previous week's 25th-anniversary show.

via wwe.com

Raw 25 pulled in the highest viewing figures for the show in almost three years but this week the flagship returned to its normal numbers.

Last week as a whole was a pretty big one for WWE. It began with Raw's 25th-anniversary show and then over the weekend we were treated to yet another incredible NXT TakeOver followed by a history-making Royal Rumble that did not disappoint. Suffice to say WWE managed to get a lot of eyes on their product over the course of that seven days.

In fact, Raw 25 pulled in more viewers for WWE on Monday nights in almost three years. 4.5 million people tuned in to watch the likes of Stone Cold and D-Generation X. The last time Raw did numbers like that was the night after WrestleMania 31 when they tuned in to see the fallout of Seth Rollins successful Money In The Bank cash in the night before.

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Vince McMahon and the rest of the creative team at WWE did their best to carry over a lot of those viewers into this new week. Closing out the Royal Rumble with the arrival of Ronda Rousey was one of the main reasons for doing that, and then Raw was booked with the hope that a lot of people were watching. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. The viewership was down to just shy of 3.4 million viewers. Still the highest numbers of the year so far outside of Raw 25, but only marginally.

Raw had a whole new look this week and featured some marquee matches in an attempt to keep some of the new and returning viewers entertained. The show opened with a chaotic and destructive match between Kane and Braun Strowman and ended with a first time ever bout between Finn Balor and John Cena. Sadly though, it seems like it wasn't enough to keep that viewership at around the four million mark.

The higher-ups at WWE aren't stupid. They know full well that one nostalgic episode of Raw isn't enough to keep their ratings consistently higher. They need to realize though that episodes of Raw like the one on Monday are the way forward. If their shows are like that every week, then they will likely see a gradual increase in viewership other time as opposed to the gradual decline they have been experiencing for years now.