The UFL’s spring football season kicked off on Easter weekend, competing with the NCAA Tournament and MLB games. Despite the competition, TV viewership numbers from Fox and ESPN suggest that launching during this busy weekend may have paid off. The league, a result of a merger between the USFL and XFL, saw solid viewership numbers in Week 1.
The standout game of Week 1 was the matchup between the St. Louis Battlehawks and Michigan Panthers, which drew 1.35 million viewers on Fox. This exceeded the viewership numbers of the USFL last season, with NBC’s highest viewership in Week 1 reaching 974,000 viewers. The UFL’s 1.35 million viewers marked a 56% increase compared to the average viewership of all broadcast TV games for the USFL/XFL last season.
On Saturday, the Birmingham Stallions and Arlington Renegades drew 1.18 million viewers on Fox, outperforming NBC and Fox’s Week 1 games from the previous USFL season. While the UFL’s numbers compared favorably to those of the XFL’s debut in Week 1 last year on ABC and ESPN/FX, they were lower than those of
