WWE Smackdown Rating & Viewership Tick Down Against NCAA Tournament

Friday’s episode of WWE Smackdown took a slight dip in the ratings and audience as it ran into the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. The episode brought in a 0.59 rating in the 18 – 49 demographic and 2.258 million viewers, down 6.4% and 2.7% respectively from the previous week’s 0.63 demo rating and 2.32 million viewers. The demo rating matched the number from two weeks ago, while the audience was the lowest since the January 20th episode had 2.257 million.

The episode ranked #4 among broadcast network shows for the night behind the NCAA games on CBS per Showbuzz Daily. The CBS games did a 0.82 demo rating/3.887 million for the 7 PM EST game and a 0.71/2.986 million for the 9:48 PM game, with the transition show inbetween doing a 0.75 and 3.348 million viewers. The overall winner on TV was the March Madness game on TNT at 6:41 PM EST (1.27 demo rating/4.371 million).

Smackdown is averaging a 0.596 demo rating and 2.369 million viewers in 2023, compared to a 0.569 demo rating and 2.202 million viewers for the same time period in 2022.