The December 20th episodes of WWE SmackDown and AEW Rampage felt the effect of stiff competition from a college football playoff.
Sourced from Programming Insider and reported by Wrestlenomics, SmackDown averaged 1,530,000 viewers and scored a 0.47 rating in the 18-49 demo.
This represents a 13% dip in viewership and a 21% drop in the demo for the episode, which was taped on December 13th.
SmackDown ranked third for the night on cable in the demo, behind ESPN’s coverage of the Indiana/Notre Dame game and its pregame studio show.
Meanwhile, AEW Rampage averaged 279,000 in total viewership, with a 0.08 rating. Viewership was down 19%, and the demo dropped by 25%.
Rampage ranked 15th in the demo for the night on cable.
By comparison, the football game was the big winner of the night, averaging 5,582,000 viewers on ESPN and a 1.65 18-49 rating. The pre-game studio show averaged 3,952,000 and a 1.65 P18-49 rating.
The game also aired on ABC and ESPN2 for an enormous combined viewership of 13,387,000 viewers.
