WWE SmackDown viewership up, 18-49 rating down for season premiere

Friday night’s season premiere episode of WWE SmackDown averaged 2.417 million viewers on Fox, up 4.2 percent from the previous week. It’s the best audience total for the show since September 15.

SmackDown topped all of the broadcast networks with a 0.62 rating in the 18-49 demo. That’s down 3.1 percent from last week and is the second-lowest rating for the show since September 8.

SmackDown’s season premiere featured appearances by Roman Reigns, Paul “Triple H” Levesque, and John Cena. The show faced stronger-than-usual competition as the Stanford/Colorado college football game, featuring Coach Deion Sanders, topped all of television with a 1.01 rating in 18-49 and 3.288 million viewers overall. It aired after SmackDown on the East Coast but head-to-head in the west. It was season premiere week for regular network TV shows but nothing else drew more than a 0.40 rating in 18-49.

As compared to the same week in 2022, SmackDown was up 6.3 percent in overall viewers and up 14.8 percent in 18-49.

Listed below are the last 11 weeks of overall viewership and 18-49 demo ratings for SmackDown, as well as the 10-week averages in both categories. This week’s show was up 4.9 percent in overall viewers but down 1.6 percent in 18-49 as compared to the recent averages.