XFL ratings have yet to stabilize, with Sunday’s games falling below the million viewer mark for the first time.
Sunday’s St. Louis-DC XFL game averaged a 0.48 rating and 767,000 viewers on FS1, marking the lowest rated and least-watched game yet for the first-year league.
Ratings fell 25% and viewership 31% from the same window on FS1 the previous week (Houston-Dallas: 0.6, 1.11M) and 47% and 48% respectively from two weeks ago on ESPN (New York-St. Louis: 0.9, 1.47M).
Later in the day, Tampa Bay-Los Angeles averaged a 0.54 and 833,000 on ESPN — down 14% in ratings and 19% in viewership from a week earlier on ESPN2 (DC-Tampa Bay: 0.63, 1.03M) and down 5% and 24% respectively from two weeks ago on FS1 (DC-LA: 0.57, 1.00M).
The games were the first XFL telecasts to average fewer than one million viewers.
Despite the lower numbers, Sunday’s games were still the day’s most-watched sporting events on cable. ESPN’s game built on its Major League Soccer lead-in by 109% (vs. 399K). FS1’s game built on its lead-in — the NASCAR Raceday studio show (545K) — by a smaller 40%.
Shifting to the broadcast networks, ABC averaged a 1.05 (+4%) and 1.55 million (-1%) for Seattle-Houston on Saturday. The slight ratings bump marks just the second time that any XFL window has increased over the previous week.
Later in the day, FOX averaged a 0.9 (-15%) and 1.50 million (-17%) for New York-Dallas, marking the lowest rated and least-watched XFL window on broadcast TV thus far.
