Last night’s episode of SmackDown on the USA Network was down to 2.175 million viewers. That’s the third lowest total since the brand split and move to a live format.
The only two shows that it beat were last year’s November 8th episode, which was against presidential election coverage, and the October 25th episode, which was against the final presidential debate.
Tuesday’s big competition on cable was the Golden State Warriors vs. San Antonio Spurs NBA playoff game and NBA draft lottery. Those broadcasts did 5.775 million and 3.224 million viewers respectively and both aired against SmackDown.
SmackDown was down 173,000 viewers from last week (a drop of seven percent), which corresponds with this week’s NBA game being up over a million viewers from last week.
The show was 10th for the night on cable in terms of total viewers. In the important 18-49 demo, it was fourth, trailing the NBA game, draft lottery, and SportsCenter, which directly followed the game.
The SmackDown go-home show for Backlash was built around an opening match of Jinder Mahal vs. AJ Styles and a main event of Randy Orton vs. Baron Corbin. Orton will defend his WWE Championship against Mahal on Sunday.
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