The TV ratings are in for Week 2 of the 2025 UFL season. The second year of the XFL-USFL merged league opened to modest viewership numbers in its opening week. Week 1’s average across four UFL games was 559,000 viewers, a 47% decline from last year’s opening slate. The 2024 UFL season averaged 850K viewers per game. A +34% increase over the 2023 XFL/USFL combined season averages (635K)
The opening ratings figures for the UFL in 2025 painted a murky picture of a potential new floor for league viewership. Week 2’s TV ratings further produced mixed results that could make the outlook even murkier.
UFL 2025 Week 2 TV Ratings On FOX/ABC/ESPN/FS1
The follow-up to last Friday’s debut game on FOX between the Michigan Panthers and Birmingham Stallions averaged 659,000 viewers, down four percent from Week 1 (690K). The 4/4 FOX telecast peaked at 751,000 viewers during the first 15 minutes.
Saturday night’s first ABC UFL showing of the new season featured the Memphis Showboats and DC Defenders. The game averaged 621,000 viewers. The game peaked at 898,000 viewers during the 8-8:15 timeframe. Last year’s ABC UFL premiere game in Week 2 between Arlington and St. Louis averaged 908,000 viewers. UFL Network broadcasts (FOX/ABC) averaged 945,000 viewers in 2024 through the championship game, up over 9% against the 2023 XFL/USFL combined season broadcast averages (864K)
This past Sunday, the noon eastern UFL telecast on ESPN, featuring the Arlington Renegades and Houston Roughnecks, averaged 613,000 viewers. In week one, Michigan-Memphis averaged 569,000 viewers in the same timeslot.
In addition to direct competition from the men’s Final Four on Saturday and pre-game shows for the women’s championship on Sunday, it’s important to note that:
- The week two average across ESPN and ABC was up compared to the 2023 spring football average across all linear platforms.
The Week 2 UFL finale, which pitted the San Antonio Brahmas and St. Louis Battlehawks early Sunday evening, was initially on FS2 due to racing before shifting to FS1 and averaged 516,000 viewers. The game peaked at 976,000 viewers during the game’s opening minutes, thanks in large part to the Nascar Cup Series scoring the night’s most substantial cable viewership with a 2.5 million viewer average. The lead-in to the UFL game peaked at nearly 3.1 million.
Sunday’s UFL game was 112% better than last year’s average of 243,000 viewers for FS1’s lone UFL telecast on 4/21/24. Barring an in-season schedule change, this will be the UFL’s only FS1-dedicated showing this year.
Week 2’s UFL ratings average was 602,500 viewers, up from last week’s 559k.
Takeaways: Several factors have contributed to the UFL’s dip in viewership to kick off its 2025 campaign, particularly in prime time network windows. A shift to a Friday night opener and possibly waning novelty after the merger of the XFL and USFL into the UFL. After all, in 2024, the league benefited from pent-up interest in the new entity. The canibalizing of the two most prominent spring pro football leagues audiences dissipated, creating a surge in the consolidation.
Modern-era spring pro football leagues have compared favorably to other established sports entities on TV. While being worlds apart from major sports leagues like the almighty NFL, the UFL has been in the same neighborhood as MLS, WNBA, and NHL, with all the respective leagues averaging anywhere from 300,000 to a million viewers for regular season telecasts on network/cable TV. There is a distinct differentiation between the network and cable audiences. The former has a higher bar that needs to be attained.
Notwithstanding that, the UFL’s mission statement and goal is year-over-year growth, with the league looking to expand to two more teams next year. Skepticism about spring pro football’s long-term viability and legitimate concerns about its potential to grow beyond a niche product have been expressed. The arrows pointing downward in some respects to start their 2025 journey cast doubt on the latter ever occurring.
Since FOX and ESPN jointly own the UFL, this isn’t a case of a fledgling, newer league attempting to make it by cashing in a TV rights deal. After all, in this case, the networks own the UFL’s live sports league content. The ultimate question is whether the viewership numbers are worth the timeslots if a ceiling for interest is limited and the floor is shrinking.
UFL Week 3 TV Schedule
Friday, April 11
- Arlington Renegades vs. Birmingham Stallions – 8 p.m. ET (FOX)
- Saturday, April 12
- Houston Roughnecks vs. Memphis Showboats – 2:30 p.m. ET (ESPN)
- Sunday, April 13
- San Antonio Brahmas vs. Michigan Panthers – noon ET (ABC)
- DC Defenders vs. St. Louis Battlehawks – 3 p.m. ET (ABC)
2 Comments
by 4th&long
Mike – I think that week 2 avg is 602k.
The good, the ok and the ugly:
FS1 over indexed and really saved the weekend at 516k. That’s the good.
ESPN did way better than last weeks avg and was only off about 65k from ESPN 2024 avg week 2-10.
That’s the OK.
Now for the Ugly. ABC only 621k? Awful. Granted 16mm tuned in for Final Four late game and 14.6mm earlier game so at least they have an excuse… Their audience hold from peak was only 69% which wasn’t good.
But Fox doesn’t have that excuse for Friday where there was no Men’s CBB. At least they beat ABC and held 88% from peak. But barely beating ESPN and FS1 isn’t good.
At least the week was up and that included the 2nd tier cable FS1.
Let’s see what week 3 brings…
by Dr. DANALUS OLIVER
The UFL should have added two teams and this two feet in by the WR has to go and I miss the extra options at the endzone the XFL started with–all this has become is abhorrent–I mean horrible statistical displays and feeble offenses that only spotlight the placekicker. Maybe even a different ball–there’s simply as much yardage in one college game as there is in two UFL games. I’m the biggest spring football fan since the 14 team 18 team USFL days–fan you’ll find but this is just a disaster right now with no changes when change was needed from last year.