This past Friday’s edition of SmackDown saw the show drop to its second-lowest viewership average since launching on Fox.
The episode over the 4th of July weekend averaged 1,861,000 with 597,000 viewers (0.46) in the 18-49 demographic, according to Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics.
It was SmackDown’s lowest number since last year’s holiday weekend with the July 3, 2020, edition of the show averaging 1,777,000 viewers and remains their lowest episode of SmackDown since launching on Fox in October 2019.
The episode included Edge appearing one week after returning unannounced to attack Roman Reigns and Jimmy Uso on the June 25th edition. They also advertised a Last Man Standing match throughout the week between Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn with the winner being added to the Money in the Bank Ladder match.
Thurston also reports that last Wednesday’s edition of Dynamite topped SmackDown in men 35-49 with AEW averaging 215,000 in the demo compared to 208,000 for SmackDown.
While SmackDown avoided the NBA playoffs, the holiday weekend likely played a factor given the performance of last year’s show over the same weekend.
Earlier this week, we reported that SmackDown averaged 108,000 viewers on Sportsnet 360 in Canada this past Friday going against Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final, which did just over 3 million viewers in the country.
