WWE: Why SmackDown Needs to Be Live Every Single Week

Once upon a time, Friday Night Smackdown never existed. 

From its initial launch in 1999 until September 2005, WWE Smackdown actually aired on Thursday nights before moving to its current timeslot on Friday nights. 

Big mistake by the WWE. 

If the company was going to move Smackdown to a different day of the week, then it shouldn’t have been Friday. It should have been Tuesday instead. 

There are some disadvantages that would come along with  Tuesday Night Smackdown, such as the added expenses of a live show, the fact that you can’t go back and edit it and also, the fact that having Smackdown on Tuesdays would mean that we wouldn’t have any WWE programming from Wednesdays through Sundays (on weeks without pay-per-views). 

That being said, the pros of moving the blue brand to Tuesday definitely outweigh the cons.

For starters, Friday night—along with Saturday—is traditionally one of the worst nights of the week for TV viewership. After a long week of work, people would rather go see a movie or go throw back some beers at their local bar than sit at home and watch TV like they’ve been doing all week.

Trust me, there's a reason why it's called the "Friday night death slot." 

Therefore, getting Smackdown off of Fridays and onto Tuesdays would solve the huge problem of the WWE losing a large chunk of its viewers, especially those who don’t have DVR and aren’t recording the show to watch at a later time. 

Realistically speaking, Smackdown ratings would almost assuredly be higher on any day of the week that isn’t Friday, whether it’s Tuesday, Wednesday or even Thursday. But switching to Tuesday nights is the only way the WWE is going to get around another huge problem: spoilers. 

I generally try to avoid spoilers because I prefer to be surprised when I watch wrestling, but if I know I have somewhere to go on a Friday night, I won’t hesitate to read the spoilers and get my WWE fix that way. And I know that there is a wide array of fans who feel just like I do. If they have something to do that Friday, they aren’t going to miss it just to watch to Smackdown. 

That’s the advantage you get with a live Tuesday show. If Smackdown airs live, then it’s physically impossibly for fans to read the spoilers because the show is airing as it is being taped. 

In turn, that makes WWE fans more likely to tune into Smackdown during its original airing, and if fans are more likely to watch the WWE’s so-called “B show,” then that obviously translates to higher ratings. 

And higher ratings are going to help the WWE in a big way. 

The better the Smackdown ratings are, the better the advertisers the WWE gets. The better advertisers the WWE gets, the more money the company makes. The more money the company makes, the more successful it is. 

It’s a simple concept really, with one decision—moving Smackdown to Tuesdays and making it live—having a classic domino effect and almost undoubtedly ensuring that the WWE in general will be better off with a Tuesday Night Smackdown. 

It won’t be easy for the WWE to get SyFy to agree to this move, but the company can start by holding Tuesday specials more often and proving that the ratings will be much better on that night of the week. The rest will just fall into place. 

I mean, if I went to Vince McMahon today and told him that there was a very simple way to cause a very drastic improvement in his product, don’t you think he would listen? 

Of course, he would. So, hear me loud and clear, Vince: Try like hell to move Smackdown to Tuesdays, and I guarantee you won’t regret it.