The United Football League continued its slow start in viewership following the kickoff week last week of the second season for the upstart spring football league. Last week, the UFL debuted with the league’s first game of the season drawing an average of 690,000 viewers, a significant decline from last year’s kickoff at 1.181 million average viewers and a season average of 816,000 average viewers per game.
According to Nielsen data, the UFL’s week two numbers were slightly up from last week’s March 28–30 premiere. However, they are still nearly 40% down from the numbers posted last year.
Meanwhile, while going head-to-head once again with the men’s and women’s Final Four, the Friday night broadcast on FOX Sports to kick off week two of the regular season noted a weekend-high of 659,000 average viewers in primetime.
Furthermore, the UFL finished the weekend with an average viewership of 602,250 viewers across all four games, which marked a 29% decline overall compared to the league’s average just a year ago, which was 844,250 average viewers per game. On a positive note, the league did see an 8% rise in viewership compared to the previous week overall. Still, overall, the league has seen a 39% drop-off compared to the average of 946,250 viewers per game through two weeks in 2024.
In addition, the league kicked off its second season of spring football with a looming players’ strike causing major concern for the health and stability of the UFL. The players’ union for the league filed a grievance with the National Labor Relations Board. Meanwhile, ongoing negotiations for a new CBA have come to a compromise. Player representatives had initially planned on delivering a letter of their grievances to Dwayne Johnson, the UFL’s co-owner, at the season opener. However, Johnson missed the game due to a plane malfunction.
As of now, there has been no update on any ongoing talks between the player’s union and the UFL regarding a new collective bargaining agreement.
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