With a rare defense of the Universal Championship, Friday Night SmackDown stayed above 2.2 million viewers for this past week’s episode.
The September 3rd edition of the averaged 2,220,000 viewers and 805,000 (0.62) in the 18-49 demographic, per Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily.
It was the top network program of the night in the 18-49 demographic and SmackDown’s highest audience in the key demo since the July 16th edition featuring the first show back with a live audience in attendance.
For the second week in a row, SmackDown finished with more than 2.2 million viewers with last week’s episode averaged 2,250,000 and 764,000 in 18-49.
This week’s show featured Roman Reigns defeating Finn Balor to retain the Universal Championship with a tease for “The Demon” version of Finn Balor at the end with the lights flickering and the sound of a heartbeat.
Friday Night SmackDown faced competition from a College Football doubleheader on ESPN, which were the top cable programs for the night with North Carolina vs. Virginia Tech at 6 p.m. ET followed by Michigan State vs. Northwestern, which began during the second hour of SmackDown.
In Canada, SmackDown averaged 160,200 viewers and 70,900 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360. The top sports program of the night featured the Toronto Blue Jays vs. Oakland A’s with SmackDown also going against coverage of the U.S. Open tennis tournament and the CFL game between Montreal and Ottawa.
This week’s numbers in Canada were down from 185,500 and 79,400 in 25-54 from the previous week.
