Rating/viewership for last Friday’s WWE Smackdown

Friday’s live Bray Wyatt and Terry Funk Tribute edition of WWE SmackDown drew an average of 2.647 million viewers on FOX, according to Nielsen, via Wrestlenomics. This final number is up 26.41% from the previous week’s final viewership of 2.094 million viewers for the Edge 25th Anniversary Celebration show.

Friday’s SmackDown drew a 0.78 rating in the key 18-49 demographic. This is up 41.81% from the previous week’s 0.55 rating. This past week’s 0.78 key demo rating represents 1.022 million 18-49 viewers, which is up 41.36% from the 723,000 18-49 viewers that the 0.55 key demo rating drew the previous week.

SmackDown ranked #1 on broadcast TV for Friday night, for the fifth week in a row, according to spoilertv.com. Like the week before, Friday’s SmackDown was preempted in several markets due to NFL pre-season games but this week it was confirmed by Wrestlenomics that NFL viewership was excluded from the measurement for SmackDown. Only 1% of homes were affected by preemptions for the NFL pre-season this week, as opposed to 6% of homes last week.

Friday’s SmackDown drew the highest total audience and the highest key demo rating since December 25, 2020, which was the Christmas episode that benefited from a strong NFL lead-in. Excluding that episode, Friday’s tribute SmackDown drew the highest total audience and key demo rating since the post-Super ShowDown episode on February 28, 2020, which drew 2.687 million viewers and a 0.78 key demo rating. Friday’s viewership and key demo rating were well above the 2022 FOX average for the blue brand. Friday’s SmackDown viewership was up 26.41% from the previous week, and the key demo rating was up 41.81% from the previous week.

Viewership for Friday’s SmackDown episode was up 33.02% from the same week in 2022, while Friday’s 18-49 key demo rating was up 62.50% from the same week in 2022. The 2022 episode was the post-SmackDown 1200 show.

Friday’s Bray Wyatt and Terry Funk Tribute edition of SmackDown on FOX aired live from the KFC Yum! Center in Lexington, KY, with the following line-up advertised ahead of time – tributes for Wyatt and Funk throughout the episode, WWE Women’s Champion IYO SKY defending against Zelina Vega, plus 2023 WWE Hall of Famer & United States Champion Rey Mysterio vs. Grayson Waller in a non-title match. The main event ended up being LA Knight vs. Finn Balor in a tribute match to Wyatt.