Daniel Bryan Vs. Ratings, or Even If He Is "Bad for Business," Why You Shouldn't Care

Ratings-proof Photo Credit: WWE.com

If you haven't heard already, I have some news for you. Daniel Bryan's epic, 50-minute long clinic in in-ring badassery drew 400K fewer viewers from the third hour of RAW last week. The "poor" rating drew some sky-is-falling reactions to whether Bryan is a ratings success or not. I pulled data from the last 13 weeks, which is a quarter of the year, on viewers in the third hour of RAW. The following graph represents my findings:

A couple of things here:

• The number of viewers fluctuates from week to week. No trend is apparent either way. Some weeks, the viewing numbers are good. Some week's, they're bad.
• This graph is independent of any other factors that might mitigate or aggravate raw viewing numbers (DVR, pirated streams, replays, WWE.com videos, other events competing with the demographic audience)
• The third hour number from this week, 3.93 million viewers, is within a standard deviation of the average number of viewers, and is not the minimum in the data set.

Basically, analysis of the numbers in the post-WrestleMania season seems to suggest that the number of viewers in the third hour are stable with fluctuations due to everyday life events, like playoff sports, barbecues, dads-n-grads celebration, or entropy. Panicking over Bryan's push or sternly discounting him as a failure to me is shortsighted pessimism at best. We know WWE is not in trouble of getting cancelled, because regardless of the raw numbers, they are still a demographic winner relative to every other show in their slot on cable television. Universal and other networks like E! and the CW are happy with them because they keep ordering new shows.

Bryan is also in no danger from my perch because he is doing so well in other areas. Again, his shirts can't stay stocked. Arena reactions for him dwarf everyone else's except CM Punk's or John Cena's. Sure, one can poo-poo crowd noise, but WWE clearly prioritizes having a lively crowd. If not, why would they employ the Sign Guy and his other seeders? Bryan, in that regard, makes their job superfluous when he comes out, as his reactions are so organic that he gets them at shows he's not even booked at.

However, let us ignore the fact that WWE has continually pushed new breed, unorthodox-for-them wrestlers like Bryan, Punk, and others for the last two years despite the same ratings pattern over that period of time. Bryan is "in trouble" because he's not a "ratings draw." The worst thing that will happen to him is that he will not be in a pay-per-view main event that often. That's it.

Belts are cool, but does Bryan really need one to be all that he can be? I don't necessarily think so, but at the same time, he can chase other Championships, pull awesome matches out of opponents of various providence, continue to be entertaining at a phenomenal clip, and get paid handsomely for doing it, all while being available to our eyes on a widely-distributed cable network.

Sure, fans like me fucking enjoy it when the dude we love the best gets to have the same brass rings as the dudes who are there to kiss babies and hug fat chicks. However, when wrestling is by its very nature a business where everything's made up and the points don't matter, should it matter where Bryan is on the card? Shouldn't the only thing that matters be that Bryan gets to perform the way we know he can, excellently?

Don't get me wrong. This misanalysis of ratings is grating because it sparks worry in instances where there's no real worry to be had. Bryan is fine, and he'll be able to continue to be fine as long as he has dudes like Triple H fighting for him. But even if he somehow loses his main event spot, his standing in the company won't matter. He'll be a WWE employee as long as he wants to be, and no matter where at on the card he habitates, he will make RAW, Smackdown, Main Event, Saturday Morning Slam, or pay-per-view worth watching.