WWE Smackdown Ratings Report 10/13/23

The season premiere of "WWE SmackDown" saw the return of Roman Reigns to WWE television, which resulted in a slight increase in viewership. 

As per "Wrestlenomics," the October 13 edition of "SmackDown" saw a 4% increase in viewership compared to the previous week, with 2,417,000 viewers tuning in to the show, as opposed to 2,319,000 for the October 6 show. But, there was a 2% decline in viewership of the 18-49 key demographic of last week's show. 

The blue brand was the #1 sports show on Friday for several weeks, but that streak was broken last week as the Colorado vs. Stanford college football game was #1 in the ratings on Friday, with 3,288,000 viewers, while "SmackDown" came in at #2. "SmackDown" has grown steadily in viewership over the last few months and when compared to the corresponding week in 2022, the show saw a 6.3 percent increase in its total viewership and a substantial 14.8 percent rise in the 18-49 demographic.

The return of the Undisputed WWE Universal Champion, Roman Reigns, was the major headline leading up to the show. His star power was reflected in the view count on WWE's YouTube channel, as his segment with LA Knight received the most views from last Friday's show, totaling 1.2 million views. The full segment featuring Reigns, Knight, John Cena, Paul Heyman, and Solo Sikoa came in second on the list with over 900,000 views. Reigns and his WrestleMania 39 opponent, Cody Rhodes, also had a brief staredown on last week's "SmackDown," teasing a potential rematch between the two, which garnered over 870,000 views. 

Reigns and Knight dominated the most-viewed YouTube videos on WWE's channel from last week's show, and two of their other videos also made it into the top 10.

Kevin Owens' move to the blue brand, Jade Cargill's backstage interaction with Charlotte Flair, and the announcement of Nick Aldis as the new SmackDown General Manager each received over 600,000 views.