Smackdown Rating: Size of post-WrestleMania bump, perspective, comparison to last year’s rating (w/Keller’s Analysis)

Last night’s episode of WWE Smackdown Live drew a 2.02 rating, the first rating at or above 2.00 since Jan. 31 and it ties the highest rating since the roster split last summer. They previous drew a 2.02 rating on Dec. 27 on a week that featured the heavily-promoted return of John Cena.

Viewership last night was 2.89 million.

Last month’s average was 1.83, the 2017 average so far going into this week was 1.84, and the rolling ten week average going into this week was 1.87.

A year ago this week, when Smackdown was pre-taped and didn’t have exclusive use of 40 percent of the roster, they drew a 1.75 rating. The 2016 average was 1.77 compared to this year’s 1.85.

Keller’s Analysis: This is a significant, but not unexpected jump up in rating, considering it’s the day after WrestleMania, Raw’s rating went up, and Smackdown didn’t have competition from the NCAA Men’s Basketball Finals. With the Superstar Shakeup next week, they could retain a significant number of viewers above their usual average.