Friday Night SmackDown and AEW Rampage saw minimal movement this past week while airing against NBA competition.
The January 19 edition of SmackDown from Atlanta averaged 2,408,000 viewers and 823,000 (0.62) in the 18-49 demographic, per Wrestlenomics.
The audience was up by 1% with the 18-49 audience falling by 2% compared with the previous week’s edition.
SmackDown aired against a must stronger NBA game than last week with the Boston Celtics vs. Denver Nuggets averaging 2,016,000 viewers and 0.66 in the demo compared to last week’s game did figures of 1,063,000 and 0.31 respectively, according to Sports Media Watch.
The show was promoted around Roman Reigns appearing for the Royal Rumble contract signing and bookended the show in the first and final segments.
SmackDown did a very strong audience in Canada with 243,700 viewers and 95,000 in the 25-54 demographic and ranked first among sports programming for the night. The audience increased from 200,800 viewers and 76,800 in the demo last week and was its largest audience in Canada since October 27.
AEW Rampage from this past Friday averaged 390,000 viewers and 161,000 (0.12) in the 18-49 demographic, per Wrestlenomics.
The audience was down 2% and the demo audience increased by 6% this week while also airing against the NBA.
The show saw an increase with female viewers with women in the 18-49 demo growing from 41,000 to 63,000 this week and females 35-49 increasing from 23,000 to 43,000.
Male viewership dropped led by men 18-34 dropping from 34,000 to 19,00 and males 18-49 declining 12% to 98,000.
The Brooklyn Nets vs. L.A. Lakers game began at 10:29 p.m. ET and averaged 1,167,000 viewers and 0.42 in the demo against the last half of Rampage including the main event between Jeff Hardy and Darby Allin.
The show included Chris Jericho facing Matt Sydal in the opening match.
