WWE Raw Debut on Netflix Draws 4.9M Global Views with The Rock, John Cena Featured

WWE Raw's debut episode on Netflix generated nearly 5 million global views on the popular streaming platform this week.

In a statement released Thursday, Netflix announced that Raw drew 4.9 million Live+1 views across the world, which is calculated by total view hours of the show divided by the runtime.

Raw averaged 2.6 million households in the United States specifically, which was a 116 percent increase from Raw's average viewership of 1.2 million per episode in 2024.

In addition to the first Raw on Netflix crushing the average viewership for the show on USA Network in 2024, it marked the highest U.S. viewership for any episode of Raw in the past five years, along with more than doubling the average audience aged 18 to 49 from last year.

After more than three decades on cable television, WWE's flagship show made the move to streaming thanks to a landmark agreement with Netflix.

Joe Otterson of Variety reported last January that the sports entertainment and streaming giants reached a 10-year deal worth a total of $5 billion for the exclusive rights to Raw.

Monday's historic episode of Raw featured appearances from some of the biggest legends in WWE history, including The Rock, John Cena and The Undertaker.

The Rock kicked off the show with a promo, during which he praised WWE champion Cody Rhodes and even hugged him. Then, after Roman Reigns beat Solo Sikoa in Tribal Combat in the opening match to secure the title of Tribal Chief, The Rock placed the sacred Ula Fala around his neck.

Cena kicked off his farewell tour with a passionate promo outlining his plans for his final year as an active in-ring wrestler. The 16-time world champion indicated that he will enter the men's Royal Rumble match next month in hopes of securing a world title match at WrestleMania 41.

Other notable segments on Raw included CM Punk defeating Seth Rollins in the main event, Rhea Ripley beating Liv Morgan for the Women's World Championship and Jey Uso upsetting Drew McIntyre.

The show was held at the Los Angeles Clippers' Intuit Dome in Inglewood, California, and WWE announced that it was the highest-grossing WWE arena event of all time

While Raw's 4.9 million global viewers was an impressive number, Netflix noted that it didn't provide the full scope of how many people watched Raw.

Not included in that number are 92 countries and territories in which Netflix does not yet have the rights to distribute Raw, including France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan and others.

Many of those countries continue to consume WWE programming on WWE Network, although they could potentially transition to Netflix at some point in 2025, giving the platform an even wider viewership base for Raw.

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