WrestleMania again gives ESPN its biggest audience of the week

Things are tough for sports networks, but they’re getting help from something many of their fans deride as “fake”.

For the second straight week, an edited replay of a past WrestleMania delivered ESPN their biggest audience of the week.

The numbers for Sun., Mar. 29’s broadcast of WrestleMania 32 were down a bit from Sun., Mar. 22’s WrestleMania 30 - but they’re still ones both the Disney-owned Network and WWE will be happy with.

The three-plus hour block earned ESPN 38th place in the cable ratings among 18 - 49 year olds with a .25 according to Showbuzz Daily. Most of the shows that rated higher than WrestleMania 32 on the list of cable originals were news-related programs focused on the pandemic.

720,000 people tuned in, which is 14% fewer than the week prior.

Still, numbers like these are why Fox Sports decided to bring more WWE content to their channels and stream this spring. With no indication when “real” sports will return, it wouldn’t be surprising to see ESPN extend their deal with Vince McMahon either.