With the move of Monday Night Raw to Netflix, WWE executives believed it would be able to expand its viewership globally. One show in and the results indicate a big day for the show’s debut on the streaming service.
The first episode of Monday Night Raw on Netflix drew 4.9 million live views globally, Netflix announced on Thursday. It averaged 2.6 million households in the U.S., Netflix added. That figure is 116% higher than Monday Night Raw’s average of 1.2 million households in 2024, and it was the highest viewership for any other episode of the show in the past five years. The inaugural show also doubled its age 18-to-49 demographic compared to last year, according to Netflix.
Netflix said the viewership numbers are the total view hours for the program divided by runtime, and it likely doesn’t provide the full scope of how many viewers tuned into the show. Netflix doesn’t yet distribute WWE shows in 92 countries and territories, including France, Germany, India and Japan among others.
‘The early numbers are strong, and they’re very pleased,’ WWE chief content officer Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque said after the show. ‘Look to be very impressive.
Levesque previously said the first show on Netflix − which took place at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California − was going to be viewed ‘like WrestleMania’ and had a main event-worthy card that saw Roman Reigns defeat Solo Sikoa in tribal combat, Rhea Ripley become the new Women’s World Champion, Jey Uso score a victory over Drew McIntyre and CM Punk get the win over Seth Rollins. That didn’t include the several appearances from other big names, including The Rock, John Cena and rapper Travis Scott.
The deal between Netflix and WWE is reportedly a $5 billion, 10-year deal.