WWE SmackDown posts lowest ratings of 2018

Tuesday night’s SmackDown on the USA Network averaged just 2.436 million viewers, the show’s lowest number of the year so far and down four percent from last week.

The episode went up against stiff competition from game one of the NBA Eastern Conference semifinals series featuring Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers facing the Toronto Raptors, which averaged 5.58 million viewers and aired directly opposite SmackDown on TNT. 

SmackDown finished fifth for the night in total viewers and was fourth in the 18-49 demo with a 0.77 rating, trailing two NBA games and the basketball post-game show, which aired at 1:13 a.m. Eastern time and drew almost as many total viewers as SmackDown did in prime time. 

The good news is that the show was up five percent year-over-year. The May 1st, 2017 episode did 2.3 million viewers, also going against heavy competition from the NBA playoffs. 

SmackDown retained 79.6 percent of the Raw audience from the night before, which is below average for this time of the year.