Friday Night SmackDown did a huge number going into the Royal Rumble with one of its highest 18-49 audiences in years.
The January 27th episode on Fox averaged 2,544,000 viewers and approximately 878,000 (0.67) in the 18-49 demographic, per Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily.
The show was tied for first among all programming on television on Friday alongside Telemundo’s Senor de Cielos VIII.
It was SmackDown’s largest audience since 12/30, which featured the return of John Cena wrestling in Tampa. However, this week’s 18-49 audience topped the Cena return and was SmackDown’s largest since Dec. 25, 2020, which was enhanced by a huge lead-in from an NFL game.
Overall viewership grew by 13 percent from last week while the 18-49 audience was up by 22 percent. In the key demo, male viewership increased by 30 percent and females were up by 11 percent.
In the 18-34 demo, the audience was up by 27 percent with males growing by 43 percent and females by 7 percent from last week.
Adults 35-49 increased by 20 percent with men up by 24 percent and women increasing by 13 percent.
The go-home show for the Royal Rumble was coming off a big Raw is XXX special with Friday’s show headlined by Kevin Owens going against Solo Sikoa.
The show also did a massive number in Canada with 283,000 viewers and 126,400 in the 25-54 demographic, which were up by 21 and 30 percent respectively. It would be one of SmackDown’s largest numbers in Canada in years and the highest for the data we have, and tops every number SmackDown did in Canada in 2022.
