Drew McIntyre’s COVID announcement gives Raw ratings a boost

This week’s episode of Monday Night Raw was up against the BCS National Championship Game featuring Ohio State taking on Alabama in what promised to be a huge ratings grabber for ESPN. As it turned out, the game did much worse than last year, dropping from over 25 million viewers to just over 18 million.

Raw’s initial counter for this was a Drew McIntyre vs. Randy Orton match. That changed when McIntyre tested positive for COVID-19. WWE, surprisingly, decided to announce this on Monday just hours before Raw was to go on the air, promising he would speak on his diagnosis for the first time in a segment on the show. Triple H was also brought in, both to appear and, later, wrestle.

The result was increased interest that rapidly decreased throughout the evening. The show drew 1.82 million viewers. Here’s the hourly breakdown:

Hour one: 2.02 million
Hour two: 1.80 million
Hour three: 1.63 million

The Triple H vs. Randy Orton hook didn’t keep viewers but the numbers held up well enough considering the competition.

Get complete Raw results and the live blog from the show here, a detailed recap of all the night’s events here, and highlights from the show here.

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