Wrestling’s Viewership Shifts Older; Loses Under-18s

A story from Sports Business Daily looking at how sports audiences are getting older has some interesting stats about professional wrestling. While sports such as golf, pro rodeo and NASCAR do have an overall older fanbase, it’s how quickly the average age of the wrestling viewer has changed that is the most interesting.

In the year 2000, the median age of a wrestling viewer was 28. In 2006, it shifted slightly to 33 which meant it was likely attracting some new, younger fans around that time to keep the age below the actual passage of time. But in 2016 it moved up to a whopping 54, ageing 21 years in just 10. That’s 10 years more than the second placed NHL in 16 years which means that either WWE is now in the plot of the movie Big, or younger viewers are being turned away.

WWE specifically must be slightly more alarmed at the statistic of under 18’s watching their show. They do present themselves as a children’s show, but these statistics show that the percentage of under-18s watching the show has now dropped to just 9%; a 23 percentage point drop since the year 2000 when everything was risque and aimed at an adult audience. You could make the argument that it’s because the younger demographic consumes media differently today, but why would wrestling plummet so much compared to every other televised sport?

Overall, it paints a picture of wrestling struggling to attract more fans, at least on television. WWE being the only big game in town means that it would be up to them to turn this trend around.