The return of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson led to a strong first hour of Friday Night SmackDown with the show experiencing its largest audience in Canada since March.
The March 1 episode from Glendale, Arizona, averaged 2,348,000 viewers and 846,000 viewers (0.64) in the 18-49 demographic, per Wrestlenomics.
Despite a nearly 40-minute segment with The Bloodline and Johnson, the overall audience only grew 3 percent from last week’s taped edition and 4 percent in the 18-49 audience.
It was SmackDown’s second-lowest audience of the year behind last week’s taped show.
In the quarter-hour breakdown from Wrestlenomics, The Bloodline segment throughout the first forty minutes of the show grew the audience and key demo audience by 18 percent from the first quarter, peaking at 2,752,000 viewers and 992,000 in the 18-49 demographic by the third quarter.
SmackDown’s top sports competition was the Boston Celtics vs. Dallas Mavericks, which averaged 1,448,000 viewers and 0.43 in the demo on ESPN, per Sports Media Watch.
SmackDown performed exceptionally well in Canada by averaging 290,100 viewers and 93,500 in the 25-53 demographic on Sportsnet 360 with both figures representing increases of 43 percent from the week prior.
It was SmackDown’s largest audience in Canada since March 31, which was the show heading into WrestleMania 39 weekend.
SmackDown ranked second for the night among sports programming in the country behind the Brier Curling tournament. SmackDown topped the Toronto Raptors vs. Golden State Warriors game on Sportsnet One, which averaged 262,400 viewers but did a larger number in the demo with 94,800 viewers. SmackDown was also ahead of the Toronto Blue Jays vs. New York Yankees pre-season game, which had 224,100 viewers.
AEW Rampage averaged 344,000 viewers and 137,000 (0.10) in the 18-49 demographic on TNT for the show heading into Revolution.
The numbers were down six percent from last week.
Women in the 18-49 demo saw a drop from 54,000 to 41,000 viewers while males saw an increase from 93,000 to 97,0000 viewers.
Adults 18-34 fell seven percent to 40,000 viewers. It was the lowest number in that demo in Rampage’s normal time slot since January 19.
Rampage was headlined by Matt Sydal vs. Magnus with the winner qualifying for the All-Star 8-Man Scramble match at Revolution.
