How Did WWE And AEW Friday Night Viewership Do Against The Stanley Cup?
"WWE SmackDown" didn't quite layeth down the viewership it did for last week's episode featuring a Vince McMahon appearance in the wake of an explosive Wall Street Journal report. Wrestlenomics provided all the numbers for the 6/24 episode and "SmackDown" received 2,231,000 average viewers, down 7% from last week's previous number.
As far as the key P18-49 demographic is concerned the program saw a little bit of a drop with an average viewership of 691,000, a 14% decrease from the previous week (804,000). The 6/17 episode saw its highest demo number since the episode after WrestleMania and its highest total viewership number since the go-home show of WrestleMania.
The 6/24 episode of "SmackDown" saw a decent uptick in viewership from last year. The 6/25/2021 episode saw an average viewing audience of 1,971,000 giving this week's episode a 260,000-person advantage over the year before.
After what was a rough night for "AEW Rampage" on 6/17, this past Friday's episode saw a rebound for the program. This past Friday's episode of "Rampage" was seen by 422,000 viewers on average, a 14% increase in comparison to last week's record low number. The P18-49 demographic only saw a 1% boost as it garnered an average audience of 210,000.
For this week, "SmackDown" came in at #3 overall for the P18-49 demographic while "AEW Rampage" ranked in at #26. The Stanley Cup Finals ranked #1 for the night with a whopping 5.1 million average viewers and scored a 1.45 for the key demo.
"SmackDown" featured Sami Zayn, Drew McIntyre, Sheamus and Shotzi all qualifying for the Money In The Bank ladder match. The program also had Gunther retaining his Intercontinental Title against the former champ, Ricochet, and Pat McAfee challenging Happy Corbin to a fight at SummerSlam.
The go-home "Rampage" for Forbidden Door had Andrade El Idolo defeating Rey Fenix after interference from Rush, Mercedes Martinez and Serena Deeb teaming up in tag action and Jeff Cobb defeating Cash Wheeler in the main event. HOOK also defeated DKC, a trainee at New Japan Pro-Wrestling's LA Dojo.