NXT Ratings Rise “Coming At A Great Time” For WWE
The rise in NXT ratings is coming at the perfect time for WWE as the company negotiates new television deals.
This past Tuesday’s edition of WWE NXT saw Dominik Mysterio beat Wes Lee to become the NXT North American Champion. It wasn’t a clean win for “Dirty” Dom, who benefitted from his buddies in The Judgment Day distracting the referee, which led to “Mami” Rhea Ripley
That match, which was pushed heavily one night earlier on Raw, drew big ratings for WWE’s third brand NXT. It was reported by Wrestlenomics that NXT had an average audience of 746,000 total viewers. That beat out last week’s audience of 671,000 viewers (which was a very good number as well), so this week’s audience was an 11% increase. The 18-49 key demo was mostly the same at 0.21 this week compared to 0.20 last week.
Another key aspect of the ratings is that the final quarter hour with the Mysterio-Lee match growing the audience as well. The audience grew 21% from the prior quarter-hour, averaging 844,000 viewers.
In the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer wrote about how WWE viewed the ratings increase while noting it’s a “great time” for WWE since they are negotiating TV contracts for Raw and Smackdown while NXT’s future could be affected as well.
“We got a lot of talk from different people within WWE after the NXT rating came out. The key points were how much the Wes Lee vs. Dominik Mysterio quarter did, the 72.2 percent year-over-year increase in 18-49 (keep in mind last year’s number was down due to being head-to-head with the MLB All-Star game but NXT’s growth since using main roster stars has been tremendous) and also pointing out that the final quarter of the show did total viewer numbers similar to Dynamite and how the show beat the previous Saturday’s Collision which was a loaded up show.”
“Obviously, the introduction of main roster talent to the show has been a big success and with Dominik Mysterio’s title win, that pretty much means Judgment Day will be appearing more. They also pushed the Lee vs. Dominik match hard on Raw the night before.”
“While it was Dominik, it is the Dominik & Ripley act that is so strong and Ripley to me has become the biggest star in the women’s division, even ahead of Lynch who had held that mantle for some time. The crowd treats her like a real superstar and her merchandise is among the top selling. The two points most talked about by different people were that this is a contract year so these gains are coming at a great time for the renewal price, and those in NXT who are definitely pushing for the idea of doing numbers that beat Dynamite.”
As for The Judgment Day’s future, WWE is really happy with them and there are plans for them to continue to appear on NXT, especially now that “Dirty” Dom holds the NXT North American Title and the audience continues to grow.