Interesting Stat Regarding WWE’s Strong TV Ratings Impacting AEW
An interesting stat has been unveiled about WWE ratings going up this year while it’s a different story when it comes to AEW.
Business is going very well for WWE with record profits thanks to their TV deals along with other business dealings, not to mention the sale to Endeavor, who valued World Wrestling Entertainment at over $9 billion during their acquisition in April.
Attendance is really strong at WWE events as well. Ratings are up too. While there are obviously less people watching network and cable television in today’s world compared to the Attitude Era due to having so many different options, WWE’s Raw and Smackdown shows are consistently among the highest in the coveted 18-49 aged ratings.
Last Friday’s WWE Smackdown drew 2.563 million viewers on Fox, which gave the blue brand a massive 18% increase from the previous week. The 18-49 key demo scored an impressive 0.73 rating, topping the charts for all TV for the night and providing a 40.4% increase on the previous week.
Also, the final quarter of the episode, which featured Roman Reigns’ Championship Celebration, averaged 2.9 million viewers.
In the new Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer wrote about how ratings have been up for Raw, Smackdown and NXT compared to last year in the key demos, while AEW Dynamite is a different story.
“Historically whenever WWE gets hot, its opposition goes down and WWE getting hot is likely a key part of the decline in AEW’s ratings all over the world. In 18-49 in the U.S., Raw has been up 19 weeks in a row from the same show one year earlier, Smackdown has been up 21 weeks in a row and NXT has been up 22 of the last 26 weeks. On the flip side, Dynamite has been down from the year before 26 straight weeks, and Rampage has been down 24 of the last 26 weeks.”
While Roman Reigns’ presence was a big factor in Smackdown ratings going up last week, the Tribal Chief isn’t advertised for Smackdown this week. He will return on June 16th.
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