Final UFL 2025 TV Ratings Report: Insights & Trends At Season’s End

The United Football League (UFL) concluded its 2025 season, its second as a merged entity of the USFL and XFL, with an overall viewership average of 669,000 viewers per game across 41 Nielsen-tracked games/windows, a 19% decline from the 2024 season’s average of 816,000 viewers (including postseason).

The season comprised 40 regular season games and three playoff games, but only 41 broadcast windows were tracked by Nielsen due to two games airing simultaneously in different markets and one game airing on ESPNNews, which is not Nielsen-tracked.

Despite challenges like fierce competition from major sports, limited marketing, and off-field issues, the UFL showcased strengths on ABC, robust regional markets, and a solid postseason, though the championship’s sub-1 million audience signals hurdles for future growth.

Overall UFL 2025 Season Viewership by Network

The 2025 season’s Nielsen-tracked viewership, covering 41 games/windows (38 regular season windows and 3 playoff games), broke down as follows:

• ABC: 891,000 viewers per game, the top-performing network, hosting the majority of high-rated games and the UFL Championship.
• FOX: 669,053 viewers per game, driven by the season’s highest viewed game in Week 9 (1.3 million viewers), thanks to an assist from Indy 500. FOX rebounded a bit at season’s end. But ironically, it was the addition of IndyCar to the FOX Sports lineup that helped push the UFL average down from last year on FOX, due to a shift to Friday games.
• ESPN: 443,400 viewers per game, the lowest average, constrained by cable access and weaker time slots.

UFL 2025 Season Viewership Highlights/Lowlights

The 2025 regular season (March 28–June 1) featured 40 games, but only 38 Nielsen-tracked windows due to two simultaneous broadcasts and one ESPNNews game (impacted by a rain delay).

UFL Viewership varied due to scheduling, lead-ins, and competition from March Madness, NBA playoffs, and the NFL Draft. Key games and trends include:

• Week 1 (March 28–30): Averaged 559,000 viewers across four windows, down 47% from 2024’s opener. St. Louis vs. Houston on FOX drew 690,000 on opening Friday.
• Week 2 (April 4–6): Averaged 602,500 viewers overall, with FS1’s San Antonio vs. St. Louis peaked at 976,000 due to a NASCAR lead-in.
• Week 3 (April 11–13): DC vs. St. Louis on ABC averaged 967,000 viewers, peaking at 1.4 million, aligning with ABC’s 891,000 season average.
• Week 4 (April 18–20): ABC’s St. Louis vs. Arlington drew 901,000 viewers, with a weekly average of ~710,000.
• Week 5 (April 25–27): Viewership dipped due to NFL Draft competition. FOX’s Friday night game was notably low head to head with under 500,000 viewers.
• Week 6 (May 2–4): Averaged 645,000 viewers, with ABC’s Houston vs. Memphis at 874,000 and ESPN’s DC vs. Michigan at 454,000, reflecting ESPN’s 443,400 average.
• Week 8 (May 16–18): The strongest week to that point, averaging 710,000 viewers, with ABC’s DC vs. Arlington at 973,000, peaking at 1.2 million.
• Week 9 (May 23–25): The season’s peak game and ratings weekend, DC vs. Houston on FOX drew 1.348 million viewers, boosted by a 7 million viewer Indy 500 lead-in. ABC’s Michigan vs. Birmingham averaged 966,000.
• Week 10 (May 30–June 1): Averaged 651,000 viewers, with ABC’s Arlington vs. San Antonio at 741,000 and FOX’s Birmingham vs. Memphis at 625,000.

The regular season’s highest-rated game was DC vs. Houston (Week 9, FOX, 1.348 million), while the lowest was Houston vs. Memphis (Week 3, ESPN, 295,000). Only one regular season game exceeded 1 million viewers, compared to six in 2024.

Playoff and Championship Performance

The 2025 UFL playoffs, consisting of two conference championships (June 8) and the UFL Championship Game (June 14), averaged 985,333 viewers across three Nielsen-tracked games, outperforming the regular season and lifting up the season average.

• USFL Conference Championship (Michigan vs. Birmingham, June 8, ABC): 1.1 million viewers, matching 2024’s USFL Conference Championship and aligning with ABC’s 891,000 average.
• XFL Conference Championship (St. Louis vs. DC, June 8, FOX): 873,000 viewers, down from 1.274 million in 2024.
• UFL Championship Game (DC Defenders vs. Michigan Panthers, June 14, ABC): 983,000 viewers, a 38% drop from 2024’s 1.596 million on FOX and the first modern spring football championship to fall below 1 million viewers.

The postseason’s stronger viewership highlights fan interest in high-stakes games, though the championship’s low audience underscores challenges in sustaining broad appeal.

Factors Impacting UFL 2025 Ratings

The 19% viewership decline from 2024 was driven by:

1. Competition: Head-to-head clashes with March Madness (Weeks 1–2), the Masters (Week 3), NBA playoffs, and the NFL Draft (Week 5) diluted viewership.
2. Marketing Shortfalls: Limited offseason promotion failed to sustain 2024’s merger buzz, reducing casual viewership.
3. Scheduling Issues: “FOX UFL Friday” (619k average) underperformed compared to ABC’s weekend games (891,000). Simultaneous broadcasts, early start times in Texas, and Birmingham didn’t help maximize audience reach.
4. Labor and Coaching Turmoil: An unratified CBA and the departure of coaches Ken Whisenhunt, Wade Phillips, and Reggie Barlow generated negative publicity.

Final Analysis

The UFL’s final ratings average in 2025 of 669k per game is still ahead of where the USFL and XFL were individually in 2023. However, the two leagues had fewer combined games on over-the-air network television and cannibalized each other’s audience during the spring of 2023, with games often airing head-to-head.

In 2022, with the XFL not in the picture, the USFL, including its postseason, averaged roughly 720,000 viewers. That’s ahead of where the UFL was this year. At the same time, it is undeniable that significant changes have occurred in the viewing landscape over the last three years. However, it’s alarming that the UFL has ceded back to what was spring pro football’s floor after the promising signs exhibited by the league in 2024.

Circling back five years, the 2020 XFL season, which was cut short due to the pandemic, averaged 1.8 million viewers, with its final week averaging 1.5 million viewers on ABC, FOX, and ESPN. A lot has changed since then, but the promise shown by the XFL in 2020 is what drove FOX and Disney to stay in the spring pro football game.

The results of the UFL in 2025 has shown that the league’s aim for growth has several limitations, some of which are self inflicted but most are a reality of where the league stands on the sporting landscape. The mainstream sports public is not clamoring for a second NFL, the same way they wouldn’t clamor for a second NBA, NHL, or MLB league. If those types of leagues, did exist, they would struggle as well to garner interest beyond a niche audience.

As a small eight team league with teams in mostly smaller markets, the UFL’s slice of the TV ratings pie is limited. Therefore, its a must that the UFL eventually expands, and stratetgically into markets with more reach. But the rub is that the league must be in cities, and play in venues that will be genuine partners and not treat them like third-class tenants.

Ultmately, the 2025 UFL season showed that stagnation leads to decline. The William S. Burroughs quote “When you stop growing, you start dying” perfectly applies to the current state of the UFL.

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