Is It Really Vince's Own Money?, RAW Notes, Lilian Garcia, More
The Million Dollar concept came up a few weeks ago when Vince McMahon was looking to come up with some out of the box ideas for a publicity stunt on Raw to help improve sagging ratings. According to sources, it is believed that WWE's marketing team came up with the idea to do some sort of trivia game on television, apparently as a take-off of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Vince changed the idea by eliminating the trivia aspect. Vince then took the concept to his legal team, and they were immediately negative on it, saying that it wasn't a good idea because they were under the belief that it would have a major backlash on the WWE stockholders. McMahon got frustrated about having to win the stockholders over on the idea, which would have delayed his plan, and he decided to use his own money for the contest instead. So when he says he's giving away his own money, he really is.
Regarding the rating for Monday's Raw, it was the show's best number since April 7. Monday's show drew a 3.30 rating and 5.21 million viewers overall. Also, the viewers per home figure was higher than usual, 1.64 for Monday's show compared to 1.48 average during the month of April. Average viewership age was 35, drew 69% males, and did a 3.30 rating in the Male 18-49 demo, up 10% from the 3.0 average since September. In an interesting note, all the numbers haven't come out yet, but the second hour of Monday's drew fewer viewers than the first hour, which is pretty rare. It looks like some viewers tuned in for the special Million Dollar contest password, and then tuned out. Had WWE changed the password throughout the night, the rating for Raw likely would have been higher.
WWE Diva Lilian Garcia will be making a special appearance at the Syracuse Chiefs minor league baseball game (against the Toledo Mud Hens) one week from now on June 25. Garcia will perform the National Anthem prior to the game and then sign autographs for fans in the concourse area from 7:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Prior to the game, there is going to be a special meet & greet reception in a room between fans and Lilian.