Wrestling TV ratings have largely rebounded after Nielsen reportedly implemented an adjustment to its Big Data + Panel methodology for cable programs, beginning Jan. 26. The change has reversed much of the double-digit declines WWE and AEW programs experienced since the new measurement system was fully launched on Sept. 26, 2025.
The decline under Big Data + Panel for wrestling was particularly strong in key age demographics that serve as the currency that advertisers buy against. That’s critical because ad buys are a major part of what justifies WWE and AEW receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in rights fees annually from their U.S. television partners. While the wrestling companies and networks mostly declined to comment, as we reported last November, NXT’s broadcaster, CW, strongly criticized what the network said was Nielsen’s lack of transparency since the new methodology became primary.
Under Big Data + Panel, before the Jan. 26 change, WWE Smackdown on USA Network averaged 1,095,000 viewers and a 0.26 P18-49 rating. In the four episodes since Jan. 26, however, Smackdown has averaged 1,219,000 and 0.30. That improvement is despite the two most-recent episodes airing on lower-profile network Syfy.
AEW Dynamite on TBS, under the new system, from late September to late January, averaged 503,000 viewers and a 0.09 P18-49 rating, excluding a preemption that was lower. Since then, Dynamite averaged 651,000 and 0.12.
AEW Collision in its normal 8 p.m. time slot on TNT went from 246,000 viewers and a 0.04 P18-49 rating to 478,000 and 0.08. It roughly doubled. The latter averages include the heavily hyped “Grand Slam” episode that aired on Feb. 14. The average is only slightly lower if you exclude it and average only the other three episodes: 450,000 and 0.08.
As far as we know, the methodology adjustment that began on Jan. 26 wasn’t applied to broadcast, meaning it doesn’t affect NXT on over-the-air network CW. Nonetheless, NXT is also up in total viewership, though, not in the key ad demo, viewers aged 18 to 49. From late September to late January, NXT averaged 594,000 viewers and a 0.09 P18-49 rating. Since then, it’s averaged 671,000 viewers and an equal 0.09.
Big Data + Panel measured most telecasts more favorably; wrestling was in the minority
Below we’ll be focusing primarily on the period before January 26, before Nielsen adjusted the Big Data + Panel methodology.
Our report from November presented measurements for telecasts under both the old “panel-only” methodology, compared to those same airings measured by the Big Data + Panel, showing that Smackdown, NXT, Dynamite, and Collision were all heavily impacted, despite the old system still measuring the same episodes more favorably.
It’s important to note that the chart below (and the chart that follows it) is based on all data available from SpoilerTV from Sept. 22 through Jan. 25, but there are many dates that are missing. We have 120 of the 154 dates in that time span, or 78% of the dates in the period, meaning 34 dates (22%) are missing. Nonetheless, this is the most complete view we were able to put together to consider how Nielsen’s new methodology affected the measurement of telecasts across the cable TV landscape.
In the chart above, we take a broad look at how differently programs were affected by Big Data + Panel. We gathered 198 different cable program titles that appeared at least 5 times in the data available via SpoilerTV, which includes WWE Smackdown, AEW Dynamite, and AEW Collision.
(If you’re wondering why I didn’t run a chart similar to the one above using P18-49 or P25-54, which are measurements arguably more important to these wrestling programs because they’re tied to ad sales, it’s because data in the ad demos is available only in ratings expressed as decimal points, rounded to the second decimal place. If you follow the data, you know that it’s somewhat rare at this point for a program to measure at more than 0.30 in either demo, so we’re dealing with data that’s relatively close to zero, without a lot of precision, relying on data points which are themselves estimates. That results in less precise comparisons when averaging and calculating differences. Total viewership (P2+) on the other hand is expressed in thousands in the data from SpoilerTV, leaving a lot more room for increments between the value and zero.)
The analysis here affirms the notion that wrestling was among the programs more negatively impacted, with only a handful of those 198 programs seeing similar or worse discrepancies. Again, like our previous study and the updated charts later in this article, this is not a study of viewership before the new methodology and after; this data reflects the very same telecasts measured under both methodologies and compared to one another. The data does in fact show that in some cases, and especially for wrestling programs, the very same telecasts measured significantly differently under panel-only versus Big Data + Panel. It’s also notable that the majority of the 198 program-and-network combinations we isolated here measured higher under the new system, not lower.
We still don’t have a clear explanation for why this discrepancy exists or why wrestling programs in particular were affected.
There are some similarities among the programs that benefited most and those that were diminished most under Big Data + Panel. Those that saw the strongest increases included children’s programming (a lot of Disney and Disney Jr. programs), but there’s still a variety of other telecasts like Spanish language soccer, Cops Reloaded on Reelz, movies, and, yes, Golden Girls reruns on the Hallmark Channel.
On the opposite end, programs that measured much lower under Big Data + Panel included the adult-audience cartoons (Bob’s Burgers, Rick & Morty, Family Guy) and few series on MTV (Untucked 17, RuPaul’s Drag Race, Caught in the Act). But, again, there’s a variety of programs there, too.
Does Big Data + Panel measure very young audiences or Spanish language audiences more heavily and younger adult audiences less heavily? Maybe, but it’s unclear.
There’s also the notion that duration might have something to do with why some programs suffered — possibly because longer programs not coded as sports (like pro wrestling, which is generally coded as entertainment) weren’t granted an exception that prevented extended viewing from being discounted. That seems plausible, and I still wouldn’t rule it out, but our analysis here didn’t find data supporting that idea. I couldn’t find a correlation between program duration and discrepancy under the two methodologies. (The R² comparing duration to the deltas of each of P2+, P18-49, P25-54 across more than 14,000 data points are all rounded to 0.00 — meaning it’s mathematically random.)
But if we look closer, can we see how sports are treated differently than programs probably not categorized as sports? I isolated the data in the same chart above to just those program-and-network combinations that had a duration of 90 minutes or more.
Filtering the data this way, it looks like wrestling was even more of an anomaly in being worse off with Big Data + Panel. Out of 75 programs that met the criteria, there are just 12 whose viewership for the same telecasts measured lower on average under the new methodology versus the old. Smackdown, Dynamite, and Collision are among those 12 — and Smackdown fared the worst, down 14% on average. Joining them on the negative side of the chart are Mind of a Monster on ID (-14%), RuPaul’s Drag Race 18 on MTV (-13%), R&R Picture Shows on VH1 (-11%), MTV’s The Challenge (-8%), Mountain Men on the History Channel (-7%), Big Ten women’s volleyball (-4%), Food Network’s Tournament of Champions: All-Star Christmas (-3%), and movies on Lifetime (-2%).
If longer, non-sports programming were being punished by Big Data, you might expect to see more movies on the negative side of the chart. But the positive side is full of not only sports but movies across a variety of networks, including TruTV, FX Movie Channel, IFC, Lifetime Movie Network, Disney Channel, Bravo, Freeform, AMC, BET, TNT, TBS, BBC America, Paramount, Comedy Central, Hallmark, and more.
If there’s some kind of exception for movies, too, you might expect to see more unscripted or reality shows on the negative side and not on the positive side. But they’re on both, as well. Four incarnations of 90 Day Fiancé on TLC measured positively on average. So did Homestead Rescue on Discovery. A few others measured about equal on average under both methodologies, including, AMC Fearfest, Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship, and Ancient Aliens on the History Channel.
In short, after you read all this, and I spent far too much time crunching data, the data itself doesn’t give us an obvious answer about what happened to wrestling under Big Data before the adjustment. But starting Jan. 26, the change has largely restored what was lost.
Each episode of the wrestling programs we track in both methodologies
What might be most surprising is that even though wrestling programs have significantly recovered from the initial form of Big Data + Panel, the old methodology is still measuring higher viewership for these telecasts than the updated new methodology. That observation suggests Nielsen’s inclusion of data from the Advertising Research Foundation’s DASH study may have also been applied to the old “panel-only” method as well.
Like our previous report, we don’t have data in the prior methodology for NXT, which is on broadcast TV, not cable, unlike the other wrestling programs considered here.
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