Spring Football Competition: UFL Successfully Debuts During Busy Weekend, Outperforms USFL

During a busy Easter weekend, the UFL launched its spring football coverage, competing with the NCAA Tournament and the first full weekend of MLB games. Despite some concerns, TV numbers from Fox and ESPN indicate that the decision to start during this time may have been justified. The league, which is a result of a merger between the USFL and XFL, had a successful Week 1 with the top game being the St. Louis Battlehawks-Michigan Panthers matchup on Fox, which attracted 1.35 million viewers on Saturday afternoon.

Comparing it to the USFL’s numbers from the previous season, the UFL’s viewership was higher. Last year, NBC saw a high of 974,000 viewers in Week 1 for a Sunday game. The 1.35 million viewers for the UFL is also a 56% increase from the average viewership of all broadcast TV games for the USFL/XFL last season.

Fox’s earlier window on Saturday afternoon drew 1.18 million viewers for the Birmingham Stallions-Arlington Renegades game, surpassing the numbers from NBC and Fox in the first week of the USFL in 2023. While the UFL’s numbers were up compared to the USFL last year, they were lower than what