WWE's First Netflix Ratings and What They Show

The ratings are officially in for the premiere episode of WWE's Monday Night Raw on Netflix, and the internet is abuzz about what it means for the first WWE outing on the streaming platform. Wrestling ratings have long been the subject of intense internet discourse, and have been used by wrestling commentators, podcasters, and writers as a metric of success or failure.

The historical Nielsen ratings have proven to be a key talking point for all wrestling organizations that have linear broadcast deals. However, they have also received their fair share of criticism, as claims from undercounted households and advancing media platforms have begun to render their systems obsolete. Now that the WWE can access Netflix's streaming data directly, based on the prevailing information, both positive and negative, the Monday Night Raw ratings showed a successful outing for a wrestling broadcast and gave the company its first real view of its new venture.

What Are "the Ratings," Anyway?

A Very Brief Guide to Understanding TV Ratings

Historically, television viewership metrics are tabulated and reported by Nielsen Media Research, the firm that has recorded these ratings since the 1950s, and has long been seen as the bar for successful, or unsuccessful, television programming. This data is useful for seeing how many households are watching a given program at any time, what time they tuned in, and even how long they stayed with the program, which gives television networks detailed and granular information regarding the performance of any measured show.

With the media consumption landscape rapidly evolving, and its data collection processes the subject of criticism due to sample size selection and alleged underrepresentation of minority households, Nielsen has been the subject of multiple lines of criticism throughout its existence. It worked towards modernizing its approach by integrating the tracking of subscription-based video-on-demand services in 2017, including Netflix, which also utilizes a measurement called "Live+1", which is designed to try and mirror an average minute audience that's used in the linear broadcast model, and this Live+1 Model provided the data set released to the public on January 9th.

Ultimately, linear broadcast and streaming platforms use different tracking methods to capture ratings data during initial broadcasts, so an apples-to-apples comparison of the Monday Night Raw Netflix ratings to the ratings on its previous home, USA Network, would be cumbersome and ultimately ineffective for illustrating success. The data released by Netflix on January 9th showed both a measurable success for the first Raw outing, and interest from Netflix subscribers for the program.

WWE Pulled an Impressive Audience for Wrestling

Viewership Was Up From Its Linear Broadcast Platform

The official ratings for the Netflix debut of Raw showed 4.9 million global viewers, with 2.6 million viewers in the United States and the remaining data set split between the United Kingdom, Canada, and Latin America, and the first time WWE cleared 4 million viewers in over a decade. It's an overall success for WWE, and the gamble of moving their flagship show to a streaming platform is giving its programming an edge over its direct competitors like AEW, who began broadcasting their programming on Max as part of their new television rights deal with Warner Bros. Discovery.

However, the ratings for Raw paled in comparison to Netflix's other ventures into live broadcast, with the Mike Tyson and Jake Paul boxing match averaging 108 million global live viewers, and the NFL game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Houston Texans averaging 24.3 million viewers. However, the NFL and boxing have a wider and prevailing audience base than WWE, still seen by its detractors as a less socially accepted form of entertainment, the 4.9 million global viewership ratings show that there is a large interest in professional wrestling.

It's Up to WWE to Keep Viewers Coming Back

New Stories and Challenges Await the Brand

Maintaining both a competitive edge and a ratings increase will depend largely on whether its creative paths can be sustained week over week, especially as two long-running storylines came to a definitive end on Monday night with no clear direction for any of the four participants. Roman Reigns defeated Solo Sikoa to reclaim his coveted ula fala and the title of "Only Tribal Chief", and Rhea Ripley ended Liv Morgan's WWE Women's World Championship reign, and presumably their long-standing feud with a pin and a kick to the groin for "Dirty" Dominik Mysterio.

However, other storylines continued, like the John Cena farewell tour and the CM Punk vs. Seth Rollins feud that appears to be anything but finished, and will allow WWE to build on existing infrastructure and bring new storylines to light for the Netflix Era. The ultimate "Head of the Table" storyline between Rock and Reigns is still hanging in the balance, and the suspected returns of both Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair could add additional, and formidable, challenges to Ripley's second reign, and provide an opportunity for WWE to continue to tell compelling stories while also, ultimately, keeping viewers tuned in.

WWE's full expansion into streaming seemed like its inevitable next step, and fans and subscribers tuned in to see what the buzz was all about with the Monday Night Raw move. What WWE does to capitalize on its initial Netflix ratings success is up to them.