More than 3 million people watched The Trial of the Roman Reigns

We’ve fallen out of the habit of doing SmackDown and Rampage ratings posts the past few weeks as part of our secret agenda to either destroy AEW or WWE (I forget which plan we’re currently working off of). That’s sarcasm, by the way... the real reasons — the death of Showbuzz Daily, summer holidays, staff schedules & interests — aren’t as interesting though.

Point is, we’ll work toward addressing that, but aren’t promising that we’ll cover the ratings of the Friday night shows every week. We will tell you when the numbers of either show are particularly newsworthy. Which brings us to the July 7 SmackDown.

Overall, the show did really well. Like, best 18-49 year old rating in three years and among the best ratings WWE’s blue brand’s done since it landed on FOX in 2019. Per Wrestlenomics, last week’s episode was watched by 2,561,000 and did a .76 in the key demo. That’s the show’s largest audience since June 2, and best rating with the 18-49 set since the famous Christmas Day 2020 show that was inflated by its NFL lead-in. Not counting that, this was the best rating SmackDown’s done since Feb. 28, 2020.

The quarter hours (again from Brandon Thurston & the great team at Wrestlenomics) are the most interesting thing about these numbers. The Bloodline has been a consistent draw for WWE for a while now, and that was definitely the case for the 35 minute “Tribal Court” segment that followed up on Jey Uso pinning Roman Reigns at Money in the Bank two Saturdays ago.

Just over 2.5 million people watched the first 15 minutes of the show and Reigns’ trial. Viewership peaked from 8:15-8:30pm ET with 3.07 million tuned in, then the third quarter hour featuring the conclusion of The Bloodline segment dipped to slightly more than 2.7 million. That still outpaced the rest of the show, with the remaining 75 minutes averaging roughly 2.4 million per quarter.

There have been questions for months about how much longer WWE can sustain interest in Roman’s story. July 7’s SmackDown is our latest example of why their answer is likely, “as long as we can.”

Here’s a rundown of the past year’s worth of SmackDown’s numbers:

• July 8 - 2.13 / .47
• July 15 - 2.08 / .47
• July 22 - 2.26 / .62
• July 29 - 2.19 / .52
• Aug. 5 - 2.09 / .49
• Aug. 12 - 1.93 / .44
• Aug. 19 - 2.08 / .47
• Aug. 26 - 1.99 / .48
• Sept. 2 - 2.08 / .49
• Sept. 9 - 2.37 / .57
• Sept. 16 - 2.21 / .50
• Sept. 23 - 2.54 / .63
• Sept. 30 - 2.21 / .54
• Oct. 7 - 2.24 / .54
• Oct. 14 - 2.27 / .54
• Oct. 21 - 2.23 / .52
• Oct. 28* - 835K / .23
• Nov. 4 - 2.14 million / .48
• Nov. 11 - 2.26 / .58
• Nov. 18 - 2.23 / .56
• Nov. 25 - 2.17 / .54
• Dec. 2* - 902K / .25
• Dec. 9 - 2.31 million / .57
• Dec. 16 - 2.19 / .52
• Dec. 23 - 2.38 / .55
• Dec. 30 - 2.63 / .64
• Jan. 6 - 2.26 / .53
• Jan. 13 - 2.33 / .55
• Jan. 20 - 2.26 / .55
• Jan. 27 - 2.54 / .67
• Feb. 3 - 2.38 / .61
• Feb. 10 - 2.47 / .64
• Feb. 17 - 2.38 / .58
• Feb. 24 - 2.41 / .62
• Mar. 3 - 2.45 / .59
• Mar. 10 - 2.32 / .63
• Mar. 17 - 2.26 / .59
• Mar. 24 - 2.22 / .58
• Mar. 31 - 2.49 / .69
• April 7 - 2.47 / .69
• April 14 - 2.27 / .58
• April 21 - 2.18 / .54
• April 28 - 2.47 / .67
• May 5 - 2.06 / .52
• May 12 - 2.15 / .56
• May 19 - 2.13 / .53
• May 26 - 2.16 / .52
• June 2 - 2.56 / .73
• June 9 - 2.28 / .60
• June 16 - 2.43 / .67
• June 23 - 2.35 / .61
• June 30 - 2.51 / .69
• July 7 - 2.56 / .76

* Aired on FS1

For complete results and this week’s SmackDown live blog click here. To read a recap & review of the night’s events click here. For video highlights of the show click here.