WWE Has Lost 1/5th Of Their Audience

PWInsider recently published an article looking at the company’s falling television ratings over the last year. The is passed RAW drew 2,615,000 viewers, making it the lowest rated RAW on the year. The report also noted that it has been over a month since RAW broke the 3 million viewers mark. Last year, RAW drew 3,268,000 viewers.
In the past, these kinds of numbers would normally sound alarm bells in the WWE and mark either drastic storyline shifts or crazy gimmicks (Vince McMahon’s Millions giveaway for example) to tried and bring the numbers back up. However, the WWE nowadays seems more focused on the WWE Network subscription numbers that are more positive than its declining TV numbers.
The site mentions that the WWE’s contract with the USA Network will be renegotiated in 2 years, which sounds like a lifetime in wrestling terms. However, it is worth noting that the last time the WWE was negotiating a new Television contract, Vince McMahon had boasted that he would make twice as much money as the previous deal, when in fact the contract was well below that number. RAW at the time was drawing in 4 million viewers at the time. This news, along with shortcomings in WWE Network subscriptions underperforming, led to a large dive for the WWE stock and ending costing Vince McMahon millions. All this time the company line has been that Television ratings don’t matter as much as they did during the Monday night wars. We shall see if that holds true.