"It's all f*cking voodoo anyway" - Eric Bischoff breaks down the numbers behind WWE RAW on Netflix (Exclusive)

Former WWE manager and Hall of Famer Eric Bischoff recently spoke about the company moving its flagship show to Netflix. Monday Night RAW premiered on the streaming giant on January 6.

It was a major milestone for WWE as RAW debuted on Netflix worldwide. Major stars such as The Rock, The Undertaker, Hulk Hogan, and John Cena showed up to the premiere. Roman Reigns and Solo Sikoa set the tone with their opening Tribal Combat, while Seth Rollins and CM Punk closed the show with an intense singles match.

During the latest The Wrestling Time Machine episode with Mac Davis, Bischoff broke down the numbers reported by several media outlets. He compared them to the Nielsen ratings to draw meaningful inferences about how successful WWE's Netflix debut was.

"I think Netflix said 2.6 million households and 4.9 million worldwide watched it live. People who are really paying attention, when they hear households and viewers it doesn't mean anything to them. Nielsen used to report ratings in share... They would tell you back then it was 1.5 people per household. That's a Nielsen statistic." He continued, "Netflix has a different data point when it comes to how many people are in a household. I've found anywhere from 2.5 to 3 people in a household is what their viewer per household is."

The Hall of Famer quickly ran some numbers to determine the actual number of people watching the show.

"Let's do some math here. Math with Eric. If you've got two million five hundred households times, Netflix says it's 2.5 to 3, let's just say it's 1.8. Somewhere in the middle of what Neilsen says and what Netflix says. It's all f*cking voodoo anyway. So I don't think anybody is gonna know for sure. So let's just go with 1.8. That number is four million five hundred thousand viewers watched RAW on Netflix." [From 6:00 onwards]

Bischoff pointed out that only 3.9 million people watched the SmackDown premiere on Fox in 2019 versus 4.5 million on Netflix in the US alone last week.

The Hall of Famer felt WWE achieved a major milestone with its Netflix debut and would carry on with the momentum in the future.

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To hear more from Eric Bischoff, tune in to the 83 Weeks podcast on YouTube.