The combination of the NFL and the World Series led to Raw doing one of the lowest total viewer numbers in the history of the show.
Monday's Raw averaged 1.39 million viewers with a 0.43 rating in 18-49, the latter not being a bad number at all given the competition.
Raw was fifth on cable for the night trailing four ESPN shows related to the football game.
The show had a huge decline with men 18-34 as well as with people over 50, but it was steady in most of the key demos.
The Las Vegas Raiders vs. Detroit Lions NFL game did 6.85 million viewers and a 2.37 rating in 18-49 on ESPN and 8.36 million viewers and a 1.59 in 18-49 on ABC. The total of 15.21 million and 3.95 is far below what Monday Night Football has been doing this season.
World Series game three, on Fox, averaged 8.14 million viewers and did a 1.64 in 18-49, continuing the very disappointing numbers of this year's series.
Raw was down six percent in viewers, down five percent in 18-49, and down 20 percent in 18-34 from last week.
Raw was steady the first two hours and had a bigger than usual third hour drop. The third hour main event was Sami Zayn vs. Damian Priest and had 1.20 million viewers, among the lowest main events ever, but again, the numbers were expected to be way down because of the competition.
From one year ago, when Raw also went against the NFL and the World Series, it was down seven percent in viewers, but up 22 percent in 18-49 and up 12 percent in 18-34, so the year-to-year decline is mostly with older viewers.
The three hours were:
- 8 p.m. 1.47 million viewers
- 9 p.m. 1.45 million viewers
- 10 p.m. 1.26 million viewers