Even against football, Raw’s numbers rose on Labor Day

We’ve fallen out of the habit of chronicling WWE Raw’s performance every week after the demise of Showbuzz Daily, but since the show had some interesting things going for it and against it this week (and since this time around they came out while one of our ratings-curious staff members has the conn)… let’s check out the numbers for Sept. 4, shall we?

On the plus side, it was the Payback fallout show. The Sept. 2 premium live event was an eventful one for the Raw roster: Finn Bálor & Damian Priest added the Tag titles to Judgment Day’s gold collection, Seth Rollins successfully defended his World Heavyweight title but got a clear message from Shinsuke Nakamura after their match, and Cody Rhodes revealed that Jey Uso was joining the red brand.

It was also the Labor Day holiday here in the United States, though. And while it wasn’t King NFL, Monday Night Football was on — putting Raw head-to-head with a nationally televised college football game featuring Duke upsetting traditional power Clemson. And per Sports TV Ratings, that contest was watched by 4.39 million people and did a 1.32 rating among 18-49 year olds for ESPN.

So how did WWE do?

Wrestlenomics has Raw averaging 1.70 million viewers per hour, with a .52 in the demo. Those are up from the Aug. 28 episode (1.68 million and a .51) which had no football competition. Full cable rankings aren’t out as of this writing, but Raw’s rating is better than anything on SpoilerTV’s rundown of broadcast offerings. It seems likely Raw finished behind Duke/Clemson and little else on all of television.

If there’s a cloud on this particular horizon, it’s that Monday’s numbers are down year-over-year. Labor Day 2022 also faced college football competition, but the Clash at the Castle fallout episode had more than 2 million viewers and posted a .58 rating.

Let us know what you make of Raw’s latest numbers in the comments below, fellow ratings-watching Cagesiders. You can catch up on other aspects of this past Monday’s show with our live blog, recap & review, and video highlights.