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What's the Story?
WWE bringing Brock Lesnar back to TV and introducing the 24/7 Championship helped Monday Night Raw's viewership increase for the third week in a row.
The Raw after Money in the Bank drew an average of 2.52 million viewers, up 172,000 from the Go-Home episode last week.
In Case You Didn't Know
Since Vince McMahon's return to Raw and the announcement of the Wild Card Rule on May 6, Raw's viewership has steadily increased, even with competition from the NBA, NHL and other programs.
The flagship show's viewership increased seven percent from last week's episode on May 13, 2019 that averaged 2.34 million and featured a main event between Braun Strowman and Sami Zayn.
The Heart of the Matter
Game four between the Golden State Warriors and the Portland Trailblazers dominated Monday night cable with over 7 million viewers, while Raw was left at the fourth highest spot in the ratings.
The following is the hourly breakdown for the May 20 edition of Raw per ShowBuzzDaily:
Hour one: 2.681 million
Hour two: 2.583 million
Hour three: 2.299 million
Raw's second hour, which started with Roman Reigns's return to the show, went head to head with the start of the Warriors-Trail Blazers and only lost 98,000 viewers.
Compared to 2018, Raw was down 5 percent from the May 21, 2018 episode which went against the NBA playoffs and averaged 2.66 million.
The show was down even more compared to the June 21, 2018 episode, which was last year's post-Money in the Bank episode of Raw and averaged 2.90 million viewers.
What's Next?
Raw could face competition from game seven of the NBA Playoffs between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Toronto Raptors if the series progresses that far.
WWE are announcing matches for the Saudi Arabia show, Super ShowDown on Friday June 7, so most of next week's show will work towards building up the event.
