After 20 games in the UFL 2025 season, the league’s TV ratings are well behind the pace of last year’s successful first-year campaign after the USFL and XFL combined forces.
UFL 2025 Season TV Ratings Swoon
To date, the United Football League average TV rating across FOX, ABC, ESPN, and a solo broadcast on FS1 is roughly 612,000– a 25 percent decrease from last year’s UFL regular season average of 816,000 viewers per game.
In 2025, the UFL is averaging 802,000 viewers on ABC, 639k on FOX, 489k on ESPN, and netted a 519k average on a solo FS1 broadcast. The numbers are down across the board. The UFL, which had six games cross the 1 million viewer mark in 2024, has yet to cross that threshold this year.
Not only is viewership far behind last year’s pace, but it’s also teetering toward the cannibalized level the XFL and USFL were at in 2023, when both spring leagues competed against one another on weekends for attention.
During the 2023 regular season, the XFL, whose games were on far fewer over-the-air broadcast network TV stations, averaged 622,000 viewers, while the USFL averaged 601,000. The latter number was boosted heavily by a Michigan Panthers-Memphis Showboats game that averaged 2.063 million viewers on NBC, brought up significantly by a 14 million viewer lead-in from the Kentucky Derby.
Midseason UFL TV Ratings Snapshot
The mid-season snapshot on the UFL 2025 TV ratings paints a murky picture of the league’s future and its ability to grow in popularity. Ultimately, it also provides evidence of the novelty of the merger wearing off and potential apathy toward the product from its established audience.
It also illustrates how limited the league’s reach can be to general sports audiences. Beyond threats of an ill-conceived player strike or player misconduct in slapping a fan, the UFL has struggled to garner mainstream attention in a crowded sports landscape.
A move to Friday Nights on FOX, competition from March Madness, the NBA and NHL playoffs, and the recent NFL Draft haven’t helped the UFL attract new audience members. But it’s challenging not to raise concern over the UFL’s current viewership totals.
For those who have been invested in the 2025 UFL product. They witnessed arguably the league’s best slate of games this past weekend.
The UFL has been boosted by significant improvements in the broadcast quality of games on ESPN/ABC, produced by multi-time Emmy award-winning College Football and NFL producer Bill Bonnell. The league’s innovative all-access features have hit the perfect balance and rival any sports league for immersion and technological prowess. In addition, the arrival of Joe Tessitore on play-by-play has increased the quality of UFL telecasts.
The ancient saying, ‘Numbers Never Lie,’ can present different truths when viewed contextually through different lenses.
Despite some characterizing pro football as a national sport in the United States, the UFL is a young upstart entity with only eight teams that are in the niche category among sports leagues. Despite that disadvantage, spring pro football products have fared well against other established pro sports leagues since the AAF surfaced in 2019.
The UFL’s TV viewership is favorable compared to leagues like MLS, rugby, women’s soccer, etc. Case in point: This past Saturday night on ESPN, the Battlehawks-Panthers game averaged 615,000 viewers, while MLS on FOX garnered a little over 340,000 viewers simultaneously. Undoubtedly, if the thriller in St. Louis aired in prime time on FOX, the game would have mustered more than 600,000 viewers.
The UFL also competes favorably against leagues like the NHL, which has similar numbers on cable and over-the-air network TV.
Can The UFL Survive Long Enough To Potentially Thrive?
The ultimate question is, does the new lowered UFL ratings floor warrant the league’s continuation? Thus far, the reaction inside the league’s leadership has been mixed. There are hints of cautious optimism that viewership figures will improve as competition subsides and games increase in importance. But there is skepticism about the property’s ability to grow and thrive. Despite an increase in elite sponsors like Verizon, the ultimate aims of luring investors to the league have not proved fruitful.
The hope from multiple sources inside the league and networks is that Week 5’s TV ratings performance will be the league’s lowest point and not a weekly baseline.
The one advantage of the UFL in maintaining its hold on network TV and prime cable stations is that the networks own and operate it. FOX and Disney are not paying a yearly rights fee for the UFL. They are, however, allowing valuable air time and covering production of the league’s games, and in the case of FOX Sports, along with RedBird Capital Partners, Dany Garcia, and to a much lesser extent, the now and again league figurehead Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, covering operational costs for the league.
Heading into the 2025 season, the UFL’s leadership group was moving forward with plans to expand the league’s team total from eight to ten in 2026. That’s still the plan, but plans can change. How the league performs in the second half of the 2025 season will help determine whether growth can be had in 2026 and beyond or if the juice is still worth squeezing. Right now, the league’s juice glass looks half empty.
3 Comments
by 4th&long
Mike – this is a good fair write up. Its a shame definitely. Reposting from your other week 5 post…
Fox can’t be happy with Friday nights in general. ABC itself is doing OK. But ESPN is also down. Having the two smallest TV markets play Friday likely didn’t help.
UFL YTD is like 613k avg, in 2024 YTD thru wk 5 was 849k with full yr 850k (includes playoffs). Down 28%. On plus side that’s the weakest week of TV broadcasting with 3 cable and NFL draft.
The league needs to do a deep dive on TV ratings. Some potential reasons:
-) No eye catcher at beginning of season, like Spring is Back (2022), XFL is back (2023), Rock at kickoff / USFL v XFL (2024)… nothing Positive to spark the media in 2025. Lack of leadership
-) Strike talk and player discontent over nickles – this Negative news got alot of attention prior to the season starting, BIG mistake by player “union” major turn off for sales and TV
-) Lots of small mkt teams on Friday night
-) Two small market teams (Memphis and Birm), these are really small TV markets – maybe keep 1 but 2? And go into bigger markets.
-) The league likely needs to hit the ground running a bit faster and stronger on the field – a 5 week of practice post camp cuts with only the active roster likely helps
-) Dany Garcia is Cringe, she’s talks alot and says little, no men’s league is run by a woman – she’s not helping the league and lacks credibility – she’s not a strong voice like a Sankey (SEC) or Oliver Luck
-) Russ Brandon is a back office type and a total wet blanket. Again they need a spokesman that has charisma and comes across as knowledgeable
-) Player 54 and dev league talk – keep telling the fans its a dev league and they will treat it that way. USFL never said that. Drop it. You can talk of those going to NFL in a way that illustrates that the league has top players. But fans don’t want to hear that its a dev league which is how it comes across.
-) Go back to XFL 2020 or USFL 2022 slogan –
“For the Love of Football” or “United by Football” – That’s why people watch they love Fb and are united in fandom.
-) Outrageous Ticket prices and no season tix discount. $100 for Houston center field seats? The other side is $74? WTF and its not just there. if the goal is fans in seats for TV appearances then price accordingly.
-) Coaching turmoil esp losing two name Coaches in season. Losing Wade and Whisenhunt HURT. They give UFL credibilty. Both should have been gone before week 1. Next year get this right.
-) Focus on awareness and TV viewership. Raise awareness of the UFL, use guerilla marketing etc…
-) The Website isn’t very good – Instead of BUY TICKETS on main page – it should highlight what games are being played that week, date, time and channel. How stupid is that? Make it OBVIOUS, it was easier last year esp on Facebook etc…
In General the league needs to WORK HARDER – all efforts should be started with “This will help raise TV viewership by…” Get a new CEO if necessary Brandon looks on autopilot.
Will UFL play into 2026 – I hope so. The weeks coming up are stacked with more Broadcast channel games.
by Gary Winter
4th and long:
All good ideas. I’m not familiar with the pricing at other stadiums. Ours in St. Louis doesn’t seem unreasonable. I have tickets on the 3rd Level (Club Level but NOT Club Seats) and they only cost me $25 each. There are of course, more expensive seats, especially down low.
I continue to be somewhat bewildered with the idea that the league decided on Friday Night Games, which on it’s face is a great idea. However, scheduling the first game (created with the intent of drawing new fans) in Houston where they predictably draw a crowd that is underwhelming to say the least and coming off a poor season last year, wasn’t a great idea. If I’m a viewer watching for the first time to see if the UFL is something I’d be interested in dedicating some of my leisure time to watching, I would have been not only surprised but disappointed. I still believe this league will work but right now there are only a few fan bases that show well. St. Louis, DC, San Antonio and Michigan would all have been a more logical choice for the inaugural Friday Night Game. This is Week 5 and while I’m not certain which teams have hosted a Friday game yet, this will be St. Louis’ first shot at it (Of course, both the Cardinals and the Blues are in town and have games Friday with start times about the same as the Battlehawks. While the UFL couldn’t have known the Blues would be playing a Game 6 playoff game this week they did know (or should have) that the Cardinals were going to be in town.
The B’Hawks will draw a good crowd but I’m pretty sure the TV ratings for the UFL won’t be helped by the folks in the Lou this week.
Someone in the UFL offices needs to take a marketing class and pay closer attention to what football fans are saying and looking for. One thing for certain, anytime they can put their best product on the field at the best time for maximum viewing, the better.
by Ken Granito
I don’t know what will happen with the UFL. Let me list the problems with the league and I will start with the most important.
1. The league is not a sport. In a sport there is no script. Two teams compete without an outcome. I am convinced that going into the Showboats vs Stallions and Renegades vs Stallions, the league was committed to not calling penalties against the Renegades or Stallions. As I had written in Week 1, Skip Holtz was not trying for the Stallions to win the game against the Defenders. He passing every down like a deer in headlights was just obvious this was the case. He defended my read on that saying that if you learn something from the game it’s ok to lose. That didn’t sound like the homage of trying to win every game. If you go 1-0 12 times you win the championship. This past week there was such an obvious hold on the 74 yard touchdown pass. It should have first been called by the officials. No, head official, Bryan Banks, could not do his job. He looked awful and his job could just as well be comedienne. I hope his parents didn’t watch or they would have lost complete respect for him. The announcers could talk about how Case Cookus is unable to run for a first down, even though he is the 13th leading rusher all-time in the legacy UFL, but they couldn’t mention. Maybe the Stallions got away with hold on that play. I watch WWE the last night. The announcers sound like Joe Tessitore yelling his stupid mouth off, not actually discussing real football at all. His partner, Jordan Rogers, tries to sound cool and says “but Max Duggan will score on this play”, like he is trash talking on behalf of the Battlehawks and that the Panthers didn’t even deserve to be on the same field with them. And of course since the players continued to play they tackled Duggan short of the end zone and Rogers likely thought he was cool, but I kind of thought he was a deck. How do you consider yourselves professionals? Seeing the WWE talk up Joe Hendry will all the glamour, even though its all scripted is much the way the UFL talks up every Battlehawks play. It’s all fake. All of it. Like in the Showboats vs Defenders game when the all-time leading receiver in UFL history is on the sidelines and the announcing crew doesn’t even know, they want to show what reporting capability they bring to the game. It’s all a JOKE.
The Showboats vs the Stallions are on FOX ondemand. I ask you to watch that game, starting with the 74 yard bomb, but including that play. Please watch it. If you are trying to save the league, they need to know that more than my girlfriend and I see it. Watch the game. You will see they made no attempt at all to regulate the offensive line play. None and that whatever the outcome of the game is is than a mockery of football. As reporters, no matter what the score shows, nothing can be considered epic. Nothing can be considered beautiful. And to allow for a game winning touchdown pass the week after you take a touchdown pass off the board for a team that opposed the same team you didn’t call it on this week only speaks to the absolute joke this league is. Please I ask you all to watch the game. The game with the Stallions and Renegades a penalty was not called on the Renegades until the 3rd quarter and to remind you the defensive end had to jump offsides to point at the offensive left tackles ankles who moved. He clearly is upset. Please Mike and if you have ANY REAL reportive skills, write a story about your findings. You want to play at being a real reporter. Prove it. Report your findings.