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As I mentioned last week, I wanted to wait until we got more data on WWE Raw moving to Netflix before opining…
…so I waited a week…
…and we still didn’t get any new data. Netflix continues to publish global data, but the two US-focused data points we got are “datecdotes”—in that they focus on the first episode only—which has its own problems. So let me give you my hot take right off the bat:
I think WWE Raw on Netflix is basically flat in the US. Or maybe down. That’s boring but what the data indicates.
Today, I’m reviewing what we know about WWE Raw on Netflix, both in America and around the globe. Then tomorrow I’ll publish the rest of the Streaming Ratings Report.
***Remember: The data that follows is often not apples-to-apples, so we need to be very cautious about what we compare it to. In particular, anyone who compares a global number to a US-only number is misleading their audience. I will avoid that below, but will be discussing both global and US numbers.***
The Data Issue: The “Premiere” Episode Was A One-Off
The main problem with looking at the WWE viewership numbers is that Netflix pulled out ALL the stops in its first week. Here’s just one quote on the coverage from The Athletic:
“From the celebrities in the audience to music star Travis Scott accompanying WWE Superstar Jey Uso to the ring, Monday’s production felt more like a premium live event (PLE),” says The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch, Chris Vannini and Jason Jones. “It felt designed to appeal to a wider audience than typical pro wrestling fans — and the new distribution channel on Netflix was clearly intended to take advantage of the platform’s worldwide reach….As a pure production play: Last night’s look was stunning, especially how the WWE opened the show. It felt massive…(including now-corporate babyface Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson cutting an in-ring promo for the company)”
That sounds like quite the shindig! (I, of course, didn’t get an invite, but every other media outlet did…) Netflix also promoted the show heavily, and I assume gave WWE Raw the best on-site marketing they could muster. And they were rewarded with a lot of coverage from traditional outlets and trades. To make an analogy: if Wrestlemania started airing every night, people wouldn’t be excited about Wrestlemania. The premiere episode was more like a WWE pay-per-view event than a traditional episode of Raw.
After that first week, though? Barely anyone has covered the WWE Raw story, and we haven’t had any new US-only data points.
Unfortunately, the initial coverage had some pretty poor comparisons. In particular, Netflix compared VideoAmp’s ratings for WWE Raw for all of 2024 to this one episode’s viewership. Can you see how that isn’t apples-to-apples? When Netflix says VideoAmp says that 2.6 million households watched the first episode in America, up from 1.2M in 2024…well, that doesn’t tell us much
I’d love for VideoAmp to update this number for WWE Raw after six episodes have come out. Pretty please?
Samba TV put out a similar number for only the first episode. They revealed that 660K watched the first episode on Netflix live, compared to 750K on cable TV in January of 2024. And we can compare that to other Netflix numbers…
…but we still don’t know how the WWE Ratings aged. Again, I’d love for Samba TV to update this number after say six or eight weeks. Pretty pretty please?
So What Else Do We Know?
We know WWE Raw’s global viewership. WWE Raw keeps making the Netflix charts due to its completed “views”, which is total hours watched divided by run-time. Interestingly, as wrestling journalist Dave Meltzer noted, Netflix divides by the replay run-time, which is shorter than the live run-time, which he believes may inflate views. (Netflix seemed to refute this here.)
Anyways, here’s the global numbers. Yes, this is a US-focused report, but these are all I have. Here’s the first seven weeks of global data, showing that the focus on the premiere episode left the wrong impression for most media consumers:
As one would expect, after a big opening, it’s come down to earth. Fair enough! Again, we’d expect a very hyped opening episode, that had lots of prominent placement on Netflix itself, to do strong numbers.
(As a data reminder, Samba TV and Luminate may or may not be tracking WWE, but Nielsen is, but it’s an “acquired show” and hasn’t earned enough hours in any given week to make the top ten list. In other words, in terms of total hours, it’s not big enough to be a top ten show week-in and week-out. Looking at its cable ratings of old, that’s not a surprise.)
Unfortunately, it’s really tough to compare this number WWE Raw in 2024…because I (emphasis on “I”) don’t have WWE Raw global viewership numbers.
Now, these numbers could exist. Repeat: these numbers very well exist. But no one has compiled them. That doesn’t mean no one watched WWE Raw outside the US; simply that we don’t know how many people watched, for how long and in which countries.
I have to assure you of that. If you search “WWE + COUNTRY”, you’ll find that Raw aired in the UK on Sky and then BT Sports/TNT Sports, Mexico on Televisa and TV Azteca, and Canada by Rogers Media. Those are the first three I searched. But no one compiled all of these individual data points into rigorous global WWE viewership, and now, unless Raw absolutely blows those previous numbers away, there’s no incentive for Netflix or the WWE to make the comparison, because anything less than “we crushed it” will have bad optics.
Could we compare this to the US-only numbers?
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