We have a breakdown of WWE and AEW’s television and attendance markers for April with data courtesy of WrestleTix and Wrestlenomics.
These figures cover WWE’s lead-up to WrestleMania 41, including its European tour and the follow-up to John Cena’s heel turn at the beginning of March at the Elimination Chamber show on March 1.
AEW saw a trend of running several new or smaller venues to varying degrees of success while charting stronger “word of mouth,” and whether that has shown any demonstrable impact on its week-to-week business, so far.
WWE
Raw Attendance
April 2025: 12,825
March 2025: 12,731
Raw featured three of John Cena’s four appearances in the lead-up to WrestleMania 41, with segments involving Cody Rhodes and coming off the heel turn on March 1. Even though we are seeing a lot more criticism of WWE’s booking, the handling of John Cena’s turn and the absence of The Rock, those complaints have not materialized into an impact on its metrics. However, with WrestleMania complete and entering the annual NBA & NHL playoff period, we will see if there is any noticeable “cooling off” from these sizable figures they are posting routinely. We don’t have the April 28 viewership stats from Netflix (releasing next Tuesday), but the night after ‘Mania Raw did the most views for the program since January 13. It has also expanded into India, with all WWE programming moving to the streamer from Sony Sports.
SmackDown Attendance
April 2025: 13,603
March 2025: 13,343
Its live event business is on fire and includes the combination of the lead-up to WrestleMania 41 and an extended European tour with some of the hottest crowds of the year.
SmackDown Viewership
April 2025: 1,617,000 viewers (664,000 in 18-49)
March 2025: 1,530,000 viewers (613,000 in 18-49)
The March episodes included ones from Spain, Italy, and London during the European tour and airing in the afternoon for North Americans on Netflix. On March 7 (Cody Rhodes’ first promo since Cena’s turn) & April 18 (the night before WrestleMania), the show averaged 1,741,000 viewers, which represents its largest audience since moving to the USA Network. SmackDown was the show featuring the build-up for Roman Reigns vs. CM Punk vs. Seth Rollins for most of that program, while Cena’s lone appearance on SmackDown was reserved for April 18. The show is expected to revert to a two-hour format after May, but USA Network must be happy with the audience retention for the third hour, as they don’t have any programming that will draw near that level in SmackDown’s place from 10-11 p.m. ET.
NXT Viewership
April 2025: 671,000 viewers (201,000 in 18-49)
March 2025: 712,000 viewers (205,000 in 18-49)
NXT has continued its crossovers with TNA talent, specifically Joe Hendry. Its March shows were strengthened by the Roadblock special in New York City with a Title vs. Title match between Giulia and Stephanie Vaquer, and The Hardys. In April, the show was on the road for the post-WrestleMania episode in Las Vegas and included main roster tag champs Raquel Rodriguez & Liv Morgan defending their titles. The big show of this two-month sample was on March 25, featuring Stephanie Vaquer defending both the Women’s & North American titles to bookend the episode, and averaged 741,000 viewers and 0.16 in the demo.
AEW
Television Attendance
April 2025: 2,822
March 2025: 2,788
This is an assessment of its TV tapings only, as we have omitted the Dynasty pay-per-view, which WrestleTix lists at 7,921 tickets distributed, and the March Revolution card in Los Angeles at 11,670.
The shows are receiving stronger “word-of-mouth” with a perception that it has escaped the plateau of late 2024, when it felt like the show was plagued by an overreliance on the Death Riders. The Jon Moxley-led group is still a prime focus of the show, and it’s hard to take these figures as any indication of a larger turnaround. Dynamite is coming off its most attended episode of the year from Norfolk this past Wednesday through a combination of Hangman Page as the home state favorite, and the All-Star Eight-Man tag, which was heavily hyped over the last week.
In April, its highlights included two nights in Boston at the MGM Music Hall, including Spring BreakThru, which was highly praised as one of the best episodes in Dynamite’s history, featuring Will Ospreay vs. Konosuke Takeshita, and Mercedes Mone vs. Athena.
Dynamite
April 2025: 605,000 viewers (214,000 in 18-49
March 2025: 637,000 viewers (220,000 in 18-49)
Collision
April 2025: 463,000 viewers (165,000 in 18-49)
March 2025: 438,000 viewers (190,000 in 18-49)
Neither comparisons reflect whatever additional viewership they are attracting on Max.
Collision is very erratic to track due to all the asterisks required for a “clean” look at the show’s performance. For clarity, we included all episodes of Collision, as there are multiple instances of shows aided and hurt by outside factors. In March, there was one episode airing head-to-head with WWE Elimination Chamber and led to a 0.06 in the 18-49 demographic (its lowest mark of the year). However, the March 22 & 29 episodes were assisted by the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, providing a strong lead-in and the demos shooting up to 0.20 and 0.22 for those weeks to outline the wide variance. In April, it avoided airing against WrestleMania with the April 17 episode airing live on Thursday and averaging 353,000 viewers and 0.08 in the demo, the following episode on April 26 had a massive audience lead-in from the L.A. Clippers vs. Denver Nuggets and provided Collision with the third largest audience in the show’s history with 707,000 viewers and 0.21.
The Thursday night experiment provided an unremarkable audience but it’s a test that will continue several times in the future and will be one to watch as a possible alternative than airing on Saturdays where they are handicapped with WWE events each month and four episodes of Saturday Night’s Main Event along with a busy sports schedule.
