The UFL is officially halfway through its first season as a merged entity between the USFL and XFL. Through the last five weeks, the TV Ratings have looked promising, and that trend continued in week five.
#UFL2024 Week 5 TV Ratings (Average Viewership)
Saturday April 27
Birmingham-Houston/San Antonio-Arlington Regional Broadcast (FOX): 777,000
Sunday April 28
St.Louis-D.C: (ESPN): 688,000
Memphis-Michigan: (FOX): 731,000#UFL #UFLTVRatings
— Mike Mitchell (@ByMikeMitchell) April 30, 2024
UFL TV Ratings From Week Five:
REGIONAL, FOX (SA-ARL, BHAM-HOU): 777,000
DC Defenders vs. St. Louis Battlehawks (ESPN): 688,000
Memphis Showboats vs. Michigan Panthers (FOX): 731,000
UFL TV Ratings Analysis
FOX decided to do regional broadcasts in back to back weeks. Last week, that experiment garnered 951,000 total viewers between the two games. This time around, the two matchups only saw 777,000 – the lowest any FOX outing has had this year (until Sundayâs game).
The regional coverage for the UFL has been hit and miss. This past week, Birminghamâs matchup was shown to 89% of the country – until the fourth quarter, as FOX switched most of their markets over to SA-ARL due to that affair being closer.
If the league does expand next year, regional coverage will certainly have to be on the table. Itâs rather unfortunate, though, that neither regional broadcast has seen 1M total viewers, considering four cities are tuning in at the same time as opposed to two.
The regionalized UFL on FOX window this past Saturday peaked at 945,000 viewers from 10:00 to 10:13 ET. Sunday afternoonâs Memphis/Michigan game on FOX peaked at 854k from 6-6:14 ET.
— Mike Mitchell (@ByMikeMitchell) April 30, 2024
ESPNâs matchup on Sunday afternoon did well, and was up at 688,000. The last ESPN affair had viewership of just 534,000.
Sundayâs showdown between Memphis and Michigan on FOX saw 731,000 in the audience – the lowest of any FOX game this year. Itâs a bit worrisome that FOXâ numbers continue to dip from week to week, but the good news is that they are still stronger than the USFLâs from a year ago.
Now, the competition this weekend was stiff. The NBA playoffs were in full effect, competing head to head with the UFL this week, which certainly took some eyeballs.
Viewership average by team through five weeks:
St. Louis – 984k
Michigan – 982k
Birmingham – 930k
San Antonio – 886k
DC – 796k
Memphis – 789k
Arlington – 729k
Houston – 709k#UFL
— Jared Shuster (@JaredShusterPFN) April 30, 2024
Comparing To Last Year
Across the board, the averages are up for the UFL compared to the USFL and XFL last year at this time:
XFL, Week Five: 266,000 average
USFL, Week Five: 623,000 average
UFL, Week Five: 732,000 average
It helps that most of the UFLâs matchups are primarily on OTA networks such as FOX and ABC, whereas the XFL was featured on cable channels like FX and ESPN2 for large chunks of the year.
What are your thoughts on these UFL TV Ratings? Do you enjoy the regional broadcasts? Let us know down in the comments below, or join the conversation on Discord!
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