Despite advertising in advance that SmackDown was moving to FS1 for one-week, and promoting appearances of Brock Lesnar, Cain Velasquez, Hulk Hogan, and Ric Flair, Smackdown only had 888,000 viewers last Friday.
A considerable part of that is due to the World Series, which drew 12.2 million viewers, but it shows WWE fans aren’t as loyal to the brand as in previous years, which must be a worry for Vince McMahon and FOX executives.
Industry insiders had been forecasting between 1.6-1.8 million viewers, so these viewing figures will have caught WWE off-guard. To put it into perspective, AEW Dynamite had 963,000 viewers for their live broadcast.
Almost certainly, SmackDown’s ratings will rebound next week when the show returns to FOX, but this is still a scary precedent of how low ratings can fall.
