Monday's WWE Raw episode did 3.54 million viewers. That's the second lowest number in the last seventeen years, for an episode that wasn't on a holiday date or football game. It is down from last week's 3.647 million viewers. However, the numbers were expected to be down, due to the MLB coverage of the All Star Game Home Run Derby. That event ended up doing 7.162 million viewers over on ESPN. The positive for WWE is that the numbers increased by the hour - 8 p.m. 3.43 million viewers 9 p.m. 3.51 million viewers 10 p.m. 3.65 million viewers But the bad news is that this was a heavily promoted go-home show for Battleground. It had been announced in advance that Brock Lesnar was going to be there, with the idea that he's a draw for viewers. Yet the number of people watching continues to be depressingly low for WWE. You can tell watching the show that they're making a much more concentrated effort to retain viewership. Lesnar was used in the opening segment and it was pushed that he'd be in the closing segment. John Cena was also utilised twice, once on commentary for the Owens vs Cesaro vs Rusev thriller, and then again when he wrestled Rusev afterwards. The long term solution to fix the ratings has to be increased quality, but the need to fill three hours often results in bad or boring segments that make fans switch off. Something WWE could be thinking about is getting the title off Seth Rollins and putting it back to John Cena somehow. That won't be popular with some fans, but Cena remains the big draw for ratings and the show draws better with him in the main events.
