WWE Raw ratings up despite going against college football playoffs

[Big Red Machine]

Source: www.F4WOnline.com

By Dave Meltzer | @davemeltzerWON | Jan 3, 2018 2:07 pm

Even with the toughest competition of the winter, with the college football playoff semifinals, Raw was up six percent on Monday night to 2.86 million viewers.

Raw was 10th for the day on cable, but every show that beat it was on ESPN and was related to the football doubleheader and this number has to be considered a major success.

The Oklahoma vs. Georgia game did 25.85 million viewers, and the Alabama vs. Clemson game did 20.41 million viewers.

Oklahoma vs. Georgia went against the first 82 minutes of Raw while the latter game went against the rest of the show. It's also notable that last week's Christmas Day number was actually artificially inflated by having the first hour be commercial free.

In addition, while the third hour, which included the finish of Roman Reigns vs. Samoa Joe and the closing angle with Brock Lesnar and Kane, was down, it wasn't down nearly as much as in many recent weeks.

The three hours were:

8 p.m. 2.97 million viewers
9 p.m. 2.91 million viewers
10 p.m. 2.71 million viewers