What’s the story?
Ratings for this week’s episode of SmackDown Live have seen an overall increase in viewership. Yesterday’s episode of SmackDown drew 2.647 million and showed an increase from the previous week’s viewership of 2.628 million for an overall gain of 19,000 viewers.
On the other hand, Monday Night Raw’s viewership reached a record-low rating for a WrestleMania season show, with 3.04 million viewers overall, despite beating SmackDown for viewers overall.
In case you didn’t know
The highlights for this week’s episode of SmackDown Live featured a tag team title match between American Alpha and The Usos, The Miz and Maryse segments mocking Total Bellas, and a brawl between Commissioner Shane McMahon and AJ Styles.
The highlights from this week’s episode of Monday Night Raw, March 21, 2017, were the rematch between Samoa Joe and Sami Zayn, the Highlight Reel with Chris Jericho and the surprise appearance of the Undertaker who interrupted the rematch between Roman Reigns and Braun Strowman.
While fans continue to praise SmackDown as the superior show to Monday Night Raw, the Blue Brand only managed to beat the flagship show in the last week of 2016.
The heart of the matter
While SmackDown’s viewership increased, Raw’s viewership saw a steep decline from hour 1 to hour 3.
Hour 1 started off with 3.16 million viewers; down 20,000 viewers from Hour 1 of Raw on March 13, 2017. Hour 2 would drop to 3.12 million viewers; down 40,000 from Hour 1. The third hour of Raw would see the heaviest decline with a decrease of 250,000 viewers.
Also read: WWE News: Monday Night Raw posts record-low ratings as WrestleMania 33 approaches
SmackDown was mostly built around the match between Styles and Shane, while Raw built their show around the rematch between Reigns and Strowman.
The impact
Many fans were expecting The Undertaker to interfere in the Reigns and Strowman match at Fastlane, but the WWE would have Reigns pin Strowman clean and end his undefeated streak a month before WrestleMania 33.
The sharp decline could indicate that fans didn’t want to watch a finish that they wanted to see weeks ago.
On the other hand, fans have also voiced displeasure in the match between Styles and Shane which closed the show for SmackDown for two weeks straight, and while it was small, the viewership did increase from one week to the next.
Author’s take
Vince McMahon recently changed his stance on ratings and viewership when he claimed that they don’t matter as much in the digital age. However, many fans still feel that they have value; especially when comparing Raw and SmackDown, since both shows are live.
Regardless of who was in the main event, the fact remains that WrestleMania season is the time when the WWE’s at its peak in mainstream relevance and popularity. If the show is getting record lows now, what will be the fate of Monday Night Raw when football season starts back up again?
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