NXT’s audience was up, even against big basketball competition

May 21’s demo rating was down slightly, but WWE & USA will take this performance against the most-watched Game 1 of an NBA Eastern Conference Finals since 2018.

The ratings and viewership data are in for the pre-taped May 21 episode of WWE NXT.

According to Wrestlenomics, the show averaged 654,000 viewers and scored a 0.17 rating among 18-49 year olds. The overall audience is big bounce back from the previous Tuesday, a 15% week-over-week improvement. The demo number, however, dropped about 5.5%.

Those would be perfectly fine numbers under pretty much any circumstances, but they’re particularly impressive given NXT aired opposite Game 1 of the NBA’s Eastern Conference Finals. Per SportsMediaWatch, the Boston Celtics overtime win over the Indiana Pacers was watched by 6.48 million on ESPN, ESPN2 & ESPN Deportes. That’s the biggest audience the start of an Eastern Conference Finals has had since LeBron James led the Cleveland Cavaliers against Boston six years ago.

Next week, NXT will be back to live for a showdown with both Game 4 of the NBA’s Western Conference Finals and Game 4 of the NHL’s Eastern Conference Finals. We’ll see how that show does. In the meantime…

Here’s a rundown of NXT’s audience and ratings share of the 18-49 demographic over the past year:

• May 23, 2023 – 578,000 / .16
• May 30 – 607,000 / .17
• June 6 – 615,000 / .17
• June 13 – 581,000 / .16
• June 20 – 773,000 / .23
• June 27 – 622,000 / .17
• July 4 – 508,000 / .13
• July 11 – 671,000 / .20
• July 18 – 746,000 / .21
• July 25 – 703,000 / .23
• Aug. 1 – 717,000 / .23
• Aug. 8 – 776,000 / .23
• Aug. 15 – 680,000 / .19
• Aug. 22 – 720,000 / .19
• Aug. 29 – 614,000 / .16
• Sept. 5 – 673,000 / .18
• Sept. 12 – 850,000 / .26
• Sept. 19 – 824,000 / .24
• Sept. 26 – 636,000 / .18
• Oct. 3 – 857,000 / .22
• Oct. 10 – 921,000 / .30
• Oct. 17 – 798,000 / .23
• Oct. 24 – 787,000 / .21
• Oct. 31 – 674,000 / .20
• Nov. 7 – 794,000 / .26
• Nov. 14 – 703,000 / .21
• Nov. 21 – 622,000 / .19
• Nov. 28 – 659,000 / .18
• Dec. 5 – 626,000 / .19
• Dec. 12 – 678,000 / .18
• Dec. 19 – 641,000 / .17
• Dec. 26: 670,000 / .19
• Jan. 2, 2024: 768,000 / .25
• Jan. 9: 722,000 / .21
• Jan. 16: 683,000 / .19
• Jan. 23: 642,000 / .19
• Jan. 30: 648,000 / .18
• Feb. 6: 650,000 / .19
• Feb. 13: 650,000 / .17
• Feb. 20: 616,000 / .18
• Feb. 27: 570,000 / .16
• Mar. 5: 654,000 / .16
• Mar. 12: 588,000 / .16
• Mar. 19: 569,000 / .18
• Mar. 26: 601,000 / .17
• April 2: 641,000 / .20
• April 9: 647,000 / .19
• April 16: 625,000 / .17
• April 23: 661,000 / .20
• April 30: 564,000 / .14
• May 7: 659,000 / .19
• May 14: 567,000 / .18
• May 21: 654,000 / .17

If you missed any of this week’s NXT, we’ve got you covered with a live blog, our review, and video highlights.