In a week of football that truthfully didn’t matter too much for the UFL, they had their best TV Ratings of the entire season. Courtesy of Mike Mitchell and Fox Sports PR, we’ve got the ratings from this weekend’s slate of games – and it’s a great step in the right direction for the league.
St. Louis vs. San Antonio (FOX): 540,000
Birmingham vs. Michigan (ABC): 966,000
Houston vs. DC (FOX): 1,348,000
There are no numbers available for Memphis vs. Arlington, as that game got moved to ESPN+, a streaming service. It was also aired on ESPN3, but those numbers were not released. Memphis vs. Arlington was originally slated to play on ABC, but a three hour weather delay caused that game to be moved to ESPN+, with Birmingham vs. Michigan starting on ABC at the same time.
On Friday night, St. Louis and San Antonio faced off in what ended up being a blowout victory for the Battlehawks. Friday Night Lights has trended a bit downwards as this UFL season has progressed, and it’s no surprise that this number is a bit lower than the Friday average, given that the game had no playoff impact, and the final score was 39-13.
ABC continues to be a bright spot for the UFL this year, with Birmingham vs. Michigan averaging 966,000 in viewership – with a peak of 1.2 million during the final fifteen minutes of the game, as the Panthers nearly mounted a late comeback.
On Sunday, FOX featured Houston vs. DC right after their premier Indy 500 showing of the day. This proved to be a major boost to the TV ratings for FOX, as over seven million tuned into Indy Car. With that lead-in, Houston vs. DC averaged 1.348M in audience, by far the most watched game of the season – and nine weeks in, we finally saw the league hit one million.
As Mike Mitchell points out, it’s a similar situation to what the USFL had in 2023, with the Kentucky Derby leading into a USFL matchup on NBC that averaged over 2.3M viewers – a stark contrast to the average of 600,000 viewers per game for the USFL that year.
Week nine’s average per game was 951,000 – up from 712,000 a week prior. With all three games on Over-The-Air networks, and a tremendous lead-in on Sunday, it’s not surprising to see the bump in average viewership.
Hopefully, the extra exposure for the UFL this week will help TV ratings continue to trend in the right direction as the playoffs are right around the corner.
What are your thoughts on these UFL TV Ratings from week nine? Let us know down in the comments below, or join the conversation on Discord!
