WWE has changed the advertised local start times for at least three Monday Night Raw events in September, moving them up by an hour. The move has led to speculation that the company could be shifting its flagship show’s broadcast time to avoid competition with the NFL’s “Monday Night Football.”
The official WWE website has updated the start times for several upcoming events. The September 15 Raw in Springfield, MA, the September 22 Raw in Evansville, IN, and the September 29 Raw in Raleigh, NC, are all now listed with a 6:30 p.m. local start time. The Evansville show, which is in the Central Time Zone, will begin at 5:30 p.m. local time, which is also 6:30 p.m. Eastern.
Typically, doors for WWE events open 30 to 60 minutes before the live broadcast begins. These new 6:30 p.m. Eastern start times suggest that the main Raw broadcast could be set to begin at 7:00 p.m. ET, a full hour earlier than its traditional 8:00 p.m. ET time slot.
While no official reason for the change has been provided, it is likely a strategic decision to avoid direct, full-length competition with “Monday Night Football” on ESPN, which begins its regular season in September. A 7:00 p.m. start time would give Raw a one-hour head start before the NFL game kicks off.
The potential shift in start time would be the latest major change for WWE’s flagship program in 2025. In January, Monday Night Raw moved from the USA Network to become a live, weekly exclusive on the Netflix streaming platform.