WWE Raw draws lowest non-holiday rating and viewership ever up against highest-rated Monday Night Football game of all-time

By Wade Keller, PWTorch editor

September 12, 2023

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Last night’s episode of WWE Monday Night Raw on USA Network (9/11) drew a 0.91 cable rating, the lowest non-holiday rating of all time. The previous low was a 0.94 rating on Feb. 7, 2022.

The total average viewership was 1.353 million, down from 1.764 million the prior week. The previous lowest viewership of the year was 1.557 million on Jan. 16. Hourly viewership was as follows:

1.367 million
1.401 million
1.292 million

The first-to-third hour dropoff was only 75,000, well below the 200,000 average dropoff the rest of 2023, an indication that the first hour took a big hit due to Aaron Rogers starting his first game for the New York Jets on Monday Night Football. It was still a lousy third-hour viewership number, though, with the previous low this year being 1.365 milion back on Jan. 16.

Raw went up against the season premiere of the NFL’s Monday Night Football game which drew a record-setting audience of 22.6 million on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN+, NFL+, and ESPN Deportes. The previous high for the NFL Monday Night Football series was 21.8 million in 2009 when Brett Favre started as quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings against his former team, the Green Bay Packers.

Last night’s game featured former Green Bay Packer quarterback Rogers debuting for Jets. (He tore his Achilles on the fourth offensive play of the game and is out for the season.) The first half drew 25.2 million on average, and then the viewership dropped in the second half of a competitive game that went to overtime.

Raw drew a 0.40 rating in the key 18-49 demographic, down from 0.52. The previous low was a 0.41 on Jan. 2 and a 0.42 on Jan. 16. It drew a lower demo rating of 0.37 on Dec. 12 last year.

Raw headlined with a WWE Women’s Title match between Rhea Ripley and Raquel Rodriguez, plus an advertised appearance of Cody Rhodes and Gunther celebrating his record-setting Intercontinental Title reign. It was a weaker than usual announced line-up.

It will take at least one more week to see if this is an aberration due to Rogers’ debut for the Jets or a sign of WWE viewership being softer than in past years up against NFL competition. The next two weeks, WWE Raw will go up against two games at a time, but none with the drawing power of the Jets vs. Buffalo Bills last night.

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