WWE Smackdown Rating, Viewership Spike With Vince McMahon, Universal Title Match

Last week’s Smackdown had a couple highly-anticipated moments between Vince McMahon and the World Title match, and ratings spiked as a result. Wrestlenomics’ Brandon Thurston reports that Friday’s episode brought in a 0.57 rating in the 18 -49 demographic and 2.29 million viewers. Those numbers are up big, rising 29.6% and 19.6% from the previous week’s 0.44 demo rating and 1.914 million viewers.

Smackdown’s numbers represent the best for the show since April. The demo rating was the best since the April 8th episode had a 0.6, while the overall audience was the top number since the April 1st episode had 2.359 million. Smackdown ranked #1 among all shows for the night on broadcast and cable, beating 20/20 (0.32 demo rating, 2.611 million viewers) for the top spot. Notably, the show benefited from a lack of big sports competition; the NBA Playoffs are over and there was no NHL playoff game.

Smackdown is averaging a 0.521 demo rating and 2.124 million viewers in 2021 to date, compared to a 0.565 demo rating and 2.122 million viewers for the same time period in 2021.