WWE’s loaded edition of Friday Night SmackDown saw the show hit one of its best figures of 2021 and top the night on television.
The September 10th edition from Madison Square Garden finished with 2,383,000 viewers and 852,000 (0.65) in the 18-49 demographic, per Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily.
Viewership increased by 7.3 percent and the 18-49 figure was up by 5.8 percent.
It was SmackDown’s highest viewership since the January 22nd episode this past year for a show promoted around Adam Pearce having a match with Paul Heyman and was equal to this week’s 2,383,000 number. If you exclude the anomaly of the Christmas Day 2020 episode that greatly benefited from following a major football game, you would have to go all the way back to April 3, 2020, edition of SmackDown for a higher viewership average.
In the 18-49 demo, this week’s number was equal to the July 16th episode, which was the first week with live fans back in attendance.
SmackDown was the top show on television on Friday with 0.65 in the 18-49 demographic with the closest competition being ABC’s edition of 20/20 that did 0.48. SmackDown was also #1 in 18-34 with 0.42.
The show was heavily promoted around Brock Lesnar’s first appearance on WWE television since March 2020, a rematch from SummerSlam between Edge and Seth Rollins, and a contract signing involving Becky Lynch and Bianca Belair.
In Canada, SmackDown averaged 202,600 viewers and 87,700 in the 25-54 demographic on Sportsnet 360. It was SmackDown’s highest number in Canada since July 23rd.
It is worth noting that among the three programs in Canada, AEW Dynamite beat Raw and SmackDown in the 25-54 demo with 89,800 while Raw averaged 85,400 last Monday.
