The first hour of WWE Backlash, airing from 6 to 7 pm on Saturday, was simulcast on ESPN2, as well as on the ESPN Unlimited app. The ESPN2 broadcast measured at 998,000 viewers and a P18-49 rating of 0.33, according to a source familiar with the data. That doesn’t include any viewership streamed on ESPN Unlimited, where the whole show aired.
We don’t have conventional Big Data + Panel data for the pre-show, which also aired on ESPN2 from 5 to 6 pm. Under the old panel-only methodology, according to SpoilerTV, the pre-show measured at 298,000 viewers and a 0.09 P18-49 rating. Under the old methodology, the first hour of Backlash itself measured at 1,043,000 and 0.37 P18-49 — slightly lower than under the new methodology. If the pattern holds, then the pre-show would measure slightly lower than the aforementioned figures under the Big Data + Panel methodology.
How does this compare to other recent ESPN broadcasts of WWE events?
We only have a few WWE examples for comparison. The first hours of WrestleMania, the biggest shows of the year, recorded 1,616,000 viewers (and 0.62 P18-49 rating) for Night 1 on ESPN2 and 1,822,000 (and 0.65 P18-49 rating) for Night 2 on the flagship ESPN. Those were like this Backlash broadcast in that they were the first hours of the show proper and they were simulcast on the ESPN app. Of course, the natural hype around a Backlash event is much less than for WrestleMania.
An airing of Royal Rumble was broadcast on ESPN (the flagship, not ESPN2) on Sunday in primetime on February 22 (8:25 pm start time) about three weeks after the event aired live on the ESPN app. It averaged 417,000 viewers and a 0.09 P18-49 rating. This live sampling of Backlash can at least say it decisively outperformed that.
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