Post-PLE edition of SmackDown falls in viewership against NBA & NHL

Photo Courtesy: WWE

Friday Night SmackDown fell in viewership for the episode following WrestleMania Backlash.

The May 13th edition of the show from Wilkes-Barre a.k.a. “The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania” averaged 1,893,000 viewers and approximately 522,000 (0.40) in the 18-49 demographic, per Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics and Showbuzz Daily.

Overall viewership fell four percent from the previous week, making Friday’s episode its lowest number since July 2, 2021, during the ThunderDome era. The 18-49 audience dropped by 13 percent and was the lowest over the past two weeks.

SmackDown finished second among network programming behind ABC’s Shark Tank in the 18-48 demo with WWE ranking first in 18-34 despite a 20.5 percent decline from last week in that demo.

The cable numbers were dominated by the NBA playoffs with SmackDown airing against Boston vs. Milwaukee that averaged 5.5 million viewers and 1.83 in 18-49 while also airing against NHL playoff games on TNT and TBS.

In Canada, SmackDown was moved to OLN due to the NHL playoffs and averaged approximately 53,000 viewers outside of the top ten sports programs that day. It was up significantly from last week’s episode on OLN that only did 29,000 viewers.

The show featured RK-Bro appearing on the program to challenge The Usos for a title unification, an unadvertised title defense by Ronda Rousey against Raquel Rodriguez, and Sasha Banks & Naomi defending the Women’s Tag Team Championship against Natalya & Shayna Baszler.

This week’s episode of SmackDown is advertising a tag title unification match between RK-Bro and The Usos.

About John Pollock 5483 Articles
Born on a Friday, John Pollock is a reporter, editor & podcaster at POST Wrestling. He runs and owns POST Wrestling alongside Wai Ting.