This week's SmackDown Live was a stacked show with a main event featuring Shinsuke Nakamura and Randy Orton vs. Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens and Jinder Mahal both challenging Brock Lesnar and finding a new opponent in the form of AJ Styles. However, despite all of that, the show drew a total of only 2.320 million viewers. That's down 6% from last week's total of 2.467 million viewers.
It just so happens to also be the lowest number the show has posited since mid-June. However, while you may think that's bad news for the show, there's a very good reason why this happened.
SmackDown Live went head to head with two NBA games, two MLB games, and even MLB post-game coverage. That's an awful lot of competition and it should actually be considered a miracle that it did as well as this! With Shane McMahon set to return next week and Lesnar answering Mahal's challenge on RAW, there's a very good chance viewership will increase so stay tuned for updates!