It was a strange decision for the WWE to put Vince McMahon on TV the same day the network announced he would step back from the CEO role amid a misconduct investigation, but it worked.
FOX enjoyed a significant bump in the week-over-week ratings for Smackdown.
The company and the network spent much of Friday afternoon promoting that McMahon would appear during the show’s opening segment in character. It prompted plenty of speculation about whether or not he would address accusations that he used $3 million of company money to cover up an affair and if so, just how much restraint would he show.
That isn’t what Vince McMahon did. He came out and delivered a promotional statement, reminding the audience that the four words that make up “the WWE signature”.
“Those four words are ‘then,’ ‘now,’ ‘forever,’ and the most important word is ‘together,'” he said. “Welcome to Smackdown!”
The lack of substance did not matter. The hype turned into ratings.
WWE Smackdown drew a .6 rating on Friday for FOX. That is 26% total growth week-over-week and 46% growth in the 18-49 demo.
