John Cena drew better than Steve Austin's run from '98

[Expeliarmussssbraaa24]

So if you compare ppv buyrates and ratings, let's see:

PPV sources

A Demand for a Comprehensive PPV Buyrate List

WWE Pay-Per-View Buys (1993-2015) - Wrestlenomics

Austin
RR 351k, No way out 188k, WM 14 836k, Unforgiven 309k, Over the Edge 211k, King of the Ring 310k, Fully Loaded 329k, Summmerslam 596k, Breakdown 315k, Judgement Day 326k, Survivor Series 477k, Rock Bottom 287k

Average 377k

Cena
New Year's Revolution 2006 345k, RR 585k, WM 22 975k, Backlash 230k, One Night Stand 304k, Summerslam 541k, Unforgiven 307k, Cyber Sunday 228k, Survivor Series 383k, Armageddon 239k
New Year's Revolution 2007 225k, RR 525k, No way Out 205k, WM 23 1250k, Backlash 210k, Judgement Day 240k, One Night Stand 188k, Vengeance 255k, Great American Bash 250k, Summerslam 545k

Average 401k



Ratings. Cena's 2006 run drew a 3.9 household rating. But there were 111.4 million TV households that year which totally changes things. 1 household rating point means 1% of all TV households were tuned in for the show. This means if we have 3.9 we get the number of households watching raw that year like this : (3.9/100)x111,400,000 which is 4,344,600 million households for that year.

Number of TV households for 2006

number of tv households 2006 - Google Search


In constrast, in 1998, in US there were 98 million TV households. So for 4.35 rating that year we get (4.35/100)x98,000,000 which is 4,263,000 million households tuned in.More households, obviously, means more viewers.


Number of TV households 1998

https://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/statab/sec18.pdf


Thoughts? It seems there is a marginal difference

 

[yourdamnluck]

Austin drew that rating with tough competition from WCW, which I think was ahead of wwe/f in 1998. Cena basically had a captive audience, still he did bad percentage wise or rating wise.
If you consider howmany more tv households were added post 1998, you'll see that wwe effectively lost audiences and ratings and clearly failed to keep up the momentum that Austin had given them.