As expected, the appearance by WWE Hall of Famer Bill Goldberg on last week’s episode of Friday Night SmackDown boosted the ratings for the show.
This is despite him only appearing “live via satellite” in order to set up his match. This segment was done to book him against WWE Universal Champion Bray Wyatt at the Super ShowDown event later this month.
Dave Meltzer gave some additional details about the ratings for the show where he noted that Goldberg’s appearance was “through the roof” and the biggest quarter SmackDown has had in a long time. Meltzer doesn’t get full data on the quarters in every market but only the top 10 markets.
The quarter drew around 3 million viewers, which is good for an increase of around 19%. The fans stayed through the quarter that also featured a segment with Roman Reigns and Baron Corbin.
This elevated the ratings were high enough where the ratings eventually dropped for the remainder of the show. Thus, fans who wanted to see Goldberg stayed tuned into the show until the appearance then left.
The final number was still 2.538 million viewers, which was up 4.5% from last week’s final number of 2.422 million viewers.
As of this writing, there’s no word yet on the next appearance for Goldberg on SmackDown.
