WWE SmackDown ratings up, beats Fox college football coverage in key demo

Friday night’s episode of WWE SmackDown averaged 1.568 million viewers on the USA Network, up 4.9% from the previous week. It’s the highest audience for the show since the USA debut two weeks earlier.

SmackDown was second on the cable charts, and all television, with a 0.45 rating in the 18-49 demo, trailing only a college football game that went head to head on ESPN and did a 0.93. It beat the FOX football game that replaced it on that network and did a 0.38 rating.

The two games that aired head to head on ESPN and FOX averaged over 5 million viewers between them and a 1.29 rating in the key demo.

Compared to the same week in 2023 when the show aired on FOX, the overall viewership was down 31.9% while the 18-49 rating was down 25%. That’s consistent with the yearly drops in the first two weeks on USA.

Listed below are the last 11 weeks of overall viewership and 18-49 demo ratings for WWE SmackDown as well as the 10-week average in both categories. The first 8 weeks listed were FOX airings. This week’s show was down 22.2% in overall viewers and 19.6% in 18-49 as compared to recent averages.