Impact ratings fall against WWE Tribute to the Troops
With Tribute to the Troops airing on the USA Network as part of WWE Week, WWE and Impact Wrestling went head-to-head in the ratings this past Thursday night.
And the results weren’t good for Impact. This week’s show averaged 161,000 viewers, the lowest number for a new episode of Impact since debuting on Pop TV. It was even lower than the audience for the Thanksgiving edition of Impact this year, which did 169,000 viewers. Earlier this month, Impact did 226,000 viewers for the December 7th episode.
Impact changed nights from Tuesdays to Thursdays in the summer of 2016 to avoid going against SmackDown after WWE had announced its move to Tuesdays.
Tribute to the Troops averaged 1,401,000 viewers. That number is up from 2016 but lower than what it had done prior to last year.
For a comparison, here are the viewership numbers that WWE posted on the USA Network this week:
- Raw — 2.68 million
- SmackDown — 2.481 million
- NXT — 841,000
- Tribute to the Troops — 1.401 million
Joseph Currier is the lead editor of F4WOnline.com, directing daily news coverage and writing articles on professional wrestling. He is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, obtaining a journalism degree in 2016. Joseph joined F4W during his time at UMass and has now been writing about the industry for nearly a decade.
In addition to his work with F4W, Joseph has previously contributed to Sports Illustrated's wrestling coverage. He lives in Massachusetts and is a diehard fan of the Boston sports teams and Liverpool Football Club.