The COVID-19 pandemic affected almost every wrestling show on television but none were hit harder than Monday Night Raw, WWE’s flagship show which hit record lows this year, lows that the show had never seen since it has started in 1993.
Monday Night Raw averaged 1,878,000 viewers for 2020, down significantly from the average of 2,417,000 the broadcast did in 2019. And 2019 was already down by around 400,000 viewers per episode on average from 2018 so WWE lost nearly 1 million viewers on average over the past two years.
Raw in 2020 also failed to even crack the 2.5 million average viewer mark and only managed to top that number in the first hour of the show on four different occasions, all before the pandemic hit.
The highest number Raw did for a single hour was 2,671,000 viewers for the first hour of the February 17 broadcast. That day was also the most-watched episode for Raw for the whole year, with an average of 2,437,000 viewers.
The record low came on December 14, with Raw getting an average of 1,526,000 viewers. The third hour of that show drew just 1,441,000 viewers, the lowest number for any single hour of Raw in history.
Raw after WrestleMania, which is usually the most-watched Raw of the year, did a disappointing 2.1 million viewers, and apart from the August 24 show, Raw never cracked 2 million viewers again.
In fact, out of 52 weeks, WWE only did more than 2 million viewers 14 times. Ever since fans were removed, Raw averaged 1,784,000 viewers. The last time Raw had fans was the March 9 episode which did 2.1 million viewers and it has been downhill ever since.
