Worryingly, Friday's episode of
SmackDown drew less than 900,000 viewers on FS1 (the show aired there instead of FOX due to the World Series being on FOX). Now, according to the @WrestleVotes Twitter account, WWE was reportedly expecting the show to do a similar rating to what it used to get on the USA Network.
The Wrap's TV Editor, Tony Maglio, was quick to counter this argument by pointing out that FS1 has tiny viewership numbers and is hard to find for casual viewers. He doesn't believe WWE would have ever expected SmackDown to draw the same numbers as it would on USA but these figures are still troubling and might not bode well for WWE moving forward.
Bear in mind that if SmackDown fails to perform on FOX, they will move it to FS1 on a permanent basis. If that happens, it seems like viewership will decline on a permanent basis massively and going below 1 million viewers would be a disaster for WWE in just about every way you can imagine.
For now, there's really no reason to expect that to happen and it will obviously be worth keeping an eye on this week's SmackDown to see how it does now the show will be back on FOX.