The UFL kicked off its second season of spring football over the weekend on FOX and ESPN. As the league enters the season, a looming players’ strike remains a major concern, with no labor contract yet established. While the focus for many who follow the UFL was on whether the season would even begin, the television viewership numbers are now officially out. Unfortunately, it was a rough start for the second-year football league.
With games airing on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the first contest featured the St. Louis Battlehawks taking on the Houston Roughnecks on FOX. This matchup drew an average of 690,000 viewers. However, this marks a significant decline from last year’s first game of the inaugural season, which averaged 1.181 million viewers.
Meanwhile, Saturday and Sunday’s contests also struggled, as all games averaged below 600,000 viewers. This fell short of last season’s overall average viewership, which stood at 816,000 per game.
One key difference this year was that the UFL’s opening weekend went head-to-head with the NCAA Tournament, which was not the case last season. Specifically, Friday’s matchup between St. Louis and Houston faced stiff competition from the NCAA’s March Madness Sweet 16 games. Those matchups averaged over 7 million viewers on CBS and nearly 3 million viewers on TBS. Additionally, the UFL had to contend with WWE’s SmackDown on USA and the World Figure Skating Championships on NBC, both of which averaged over 1.3 million viewers.
As for individual game performances, Saturday afternoon’s showdown between the San Antonio Brahmas and the Arlington Renegades averaged 584,000 viewers, peaking at 673,000. On Sunday, the ESPN doubleheader saw the Memphis Showboats take on the Michigan Panthers, drawing an average of 569,000 viewers. Later that evening, the second game of the doubleheader featured the Birmingham Stallions facing off against the D.C. Defenders, but it only managed to attract an average of 395,000 viewers.
Looking ahead, the league now shifts its focus to Week 2 of the season. This coming weekend, games will be played on Friday and Saturday, with both airing at 8 p.m. on FOX and ABC, respectively. On Sunday, a doubleheader is scheduled, beginning with a noon kickoff between Houston and Arlington on ESPN, followed by San Antonio and St. Louis at 6 p.m. on FS1.
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