Monday Night Raw ratings are in, and a new “water level” seems to be established (w/Keller’s Analysis)

Last night’s episode of Monday Night Raw drew a 1.92 rating, which other than last week’s anomaly up against the Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump debate carried on multiple networks live up against half of Raw, the rating is back to average of the previous two post-Labor Day episodes that have gone up against the NFL Monday Night Football games on ESPN.

The 1.92 rating is in between the 1.97 and 1.88 during those first two post-Labor Day editions of Raw last month. It’s quite lower than the summer numbers which were from Aug. 8 through Sept. were 2.05,  2.12, 2.34, 2.38, and 2.11 to close out the summer season before Monday Night Football.

The show drew 2.877 million viewers in hour one, 2.870 in hour two, and 2.644 in hour three, so pretty steady for two hours with a big dropoff in the third despite the carryover of Kevin Owens & Chris Jericho vs. The New Day to start hour three and the heavily advertised Women’s Title match with Charlotte vs. Sasha Banks. It’s typical for the third hour to be down from the first two, though.

For perspective, Monday Night Football drew 13.1 million viewers. The NFL viewership was higher than two weeks ago when it drew 12.1 million. NFL drew 12.9 million on Sept. 12.

Keller’s Analysis: This appears to be a new water level for Monday Night Raw when there aren’t major outside factors at play. Raw went up against a marquee NFL game with the undefeated Minnesota Vikings vs. the New York Giants who are in the the largest TV market in the country. WWE is also in a mode of trying to build new stars. For instance, headlining with a Women’s Title match isn’t a ratings stunt, it’s an investment in building value in the title and establishing with viewers that Charlotte and Sasha Banks are main event players, not mid-card novelty wrestlers. This is worth doing, even if it’s possible they could draw a bigger rating with some hotshot main event matches with top male wrestlers, although I’m not sure there’s any of those left. They also are trying to build a Cruiserweight Division with new stars, and this is a worthwhile venture even if in the short-run it’s not as big of a draw as it eventually will be.