WWE Rumors: Raw Pre-Show Will Bode Well for Flagship's Tumbling Ratings

It is no secret that ratings for Raw and WWE programming in general tend to dip in the weeks and months following WrestleMania. Thanks to a concept that has been in the making for quite some time and now appears to be close to happening, though, Raw is in line to see a nice rebound.

According to Richard Gray of Wrestling News World, the WWE has been discussing a one-hour pre-show for Raw since August. With news coming out that the company is extending its Raw tapings by an hour, starting on July 2, that may mark the debut of the pre-show.

There hasn't yet been any confirmation that the pre-show is definitely beginning on July 2, but it certainly seems to be a good explanation for the lengthened taping. There also hasn't been any indication as to what the pre-show would entail. However, I would imagine that there would be some highlight packages, interviews and matches between low-to-mid-card talent.

It may not seem like much, but this could do a lot for Raw's ratings. The current lead-in to Raw is NCIS. While that is apparently a pretty popular show, NCIS fans aren't necessarily going to hang around for Raw. If you add a pre-show, however, it makes Raw seem that much more important. Therefore, wrestling fans will be more inclined to watch and even some none-wrestling fans may want to check it out.

When you really think about it, every big event in sports today has a pre-game show of some sort. Obviously, the results for WWE are predetermined, but it is marketed as sports entertainment and therefore it should maintain all the aspects that any legitimate sport would.

Perhaps the biggest advantage the WWE would gain by airing a pre-show is that it would give them an extra hour every week to advance storylines. There is no doubt that much of that hour will be used to show highlights since the company obviously loves to do that, but I'm sure that some angles will play out as well.

The WWE only has four hours of programming per week, and while that may seem like a lot on the surface, it really isn't when you consider how much talent there is to push and get involved in meaningful storylines. The pre-show will add an hour to that total and it should increase the quality of Raw in particular since things won't have to be so jam-packed in those two hours.

As the quality of the show goes up, the ratings will likely go up as well. That doesn't necessarily mean much in wrestling today since the WWE isn't competing with a legitimate company like WCW, but I'm sure that Vince McMahon and the board of directors would like to see a positive trend in the ratings.

If nothing else, another hour of programming will increase advertising revenue and that could probably make up for any losses they have experienced on the ratings front. There really isn't any discernible downside to instituting a pre-show. Even if the show itself is nothing special, it should generate some buzz at the very least.

The WWE has done a really nice job of developing new projects and making the website content more pertinent. For that reason, I'm confident that the pre-show, if it does indeed launch on July 2, will be a major coup for the company.

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