RAW moves to Netflix this evening, marking the first time since 1993 that WWE's flagship show won't be on regular television. However, the show stands a chance of reaching its biggest audience ever...and for those unwilling to make the leap to streaming, NXT is on The CW and SmackDown remains on the USA Network.
RAW has always been on Monday nights (unlike SmackDown, which has typically hopped around the week) but that's not always been a good thing. For example, when the NFL returns with Monday Night Football, RAW ratings take a hit.
Talking to Jimmy Traina, WWE CCO Triple H confirmed that there were discussions about moving RAW to a different night when discussions with Netflix started:
"One of the things working best in WWE with the team of Nick [Khan], Lee Fitting, and many others, we’re all looking at what is the best way to do it. Forget what we have and what’s on the table. Let’s look at it with fresh eyes and say, ‘If we were building this ground up, what would we do and how would we do it?’ Take all the things we know and factor in the whys and hows. Monday night was contemplated. Is that a move off of Monday? Does it stay on Monday?"
"It’s also a 30-plus-year tradition. You have to factor that in. Plus, the business model and everything else. I’m a big believer that you can work around all of those things. We weighed all of it out, as we always do, with the partners and ourselves, and we determined what was best and what was best was staying on Monday. You can move and understand the global nature of WWE and Netflix. Yes, Monday is NFL, but that is not a factor in a lot of the world. There were a lot of factors heavily weighed."
Overseas, WWE fans will have access to RAW, SmackDown, NXT, and every PLE on Netflix.
That's a big contrast to the U.S. where it's only RAW, and Traina wondered what the odds are of those PLEs and the WWE Network catalogue - currently exclusive to Peacock - heading to the streamer.
"At some point this year, we’ll get into the deal with Peacock, who we love and they’ll get a lot of consideration for us as the existing partner. I like to think that if we’re successful the way we think we will be, Netflix would be very interested and others will be as well. Premium Live Events, that’s our biggest content and our most valuable content, including WrestleMania. I think people will come in strong for that. Hopefully, between now and March of next year, we will prove ourselves that that is our most valuable content."
Providing RAW does as well as expected for both WWE and Netflix, we'd say PLEs like Royal Rumble, WrestleMania, SummerSlam, and Survivor Series will join the Monday night show next Spring.
Check out the full interview with Triple H in the player below.