This past weekend the USFL finally kicked off their inaugural season with the Birmingham Stallions taking on the New Jersey Generals. Many agreed that the game play was solid and broadcast was professional. But… how did that translate into viewership.
We already knew that the Saturday night simulcast on FOX and NBC brought in over 3 Million viewers, now we have insight into the rest of the matchups.
USFL NJ/Birm (Saturday night premiere):
Fox: 1.757M
NBC: 1.310M
(3.067M combined)Sunday:
NBC Hou/Mich : 2.153M
USA PHI/NO: 771K— Sports TV Ratings (@SportsTVRatings) April 19, 2022
The first Easter game between the Houston Gamblers and Michigan Panthers pulled in over 2.1M viewers on NBC. Considering this game was delayed a couple hours, we think this is a great showing. The later game between the Philadelphia Stars and New Orleans Breakers saw a dip when moving to USA but still brought in over 770,000 sets of eyes.
Now, the big question was how would the last game perform with it being bumped to Monday night due to weather on FS1. Well, the numbers are more or less what we expected. With the delay and little advertising, the Monday matchup has 268,000 viewers tune in.
A bigger test should be this Friday when the Michigan Panthers take on the New Jersey Generals in the leagues first Friday night game on USA.
One things for sure, other than the delayed game, these numbers are very promising for a new league.
We’ll keep reporting on the rating as we make our way through the season, so stay tuned to keep up with the trends.
Did you tune into the USFL this weekend? What was your favorite game? Let us know down in the comments below or join the conversation on Discord.
