Friday night's episode of WWE SmackDown averaged 2.03 million viewers on Fox, down 5.5 percent from the previous week. It's the lowest audience for the show on Fox since July 9, which was the week prior to WWE's return to live touring.
Friday's SmackDown featured Brock Lesnar's return to WWE television for the first time since the angle where he was suspended indefinitely in October.
In the 18-49 demo, SmackDown drew a 0.51 rating, down 10.5 percent from the November 26 episode. That's also the lowest number SmackDown has drawn on Fox in that category since July 9.
SmackDown faced stronger than usual sports competition with the PAC-12 championship game on ABC averaging more than 4.2 million viewers and drawing a 0.95 rating in 18-49. The football game topped all of television in the demo. SmackDown was fourth on the networks, also trailing the pre-game show for the football game and CBS' S.W.A.T.
There was also an NBA game on ESPN airing opposite SmackDown that averaged just over 1.2 million viewers and drew a 0.41 rating in 18-49.
As compared to this same week last year, SmackDown was down 4.7 percent in overall viewers and down 15 percent in the key demo.
Listed below are the last 11 weeks of viewership and 18-49 demo numbers for Fox airings of SmackDown, along with the 10-week averages in both categories prior to this week. This week's show was down seven percent in viewers and down 10.5 percent in 18-49 from the recent averages.