As expected, the USFL and XFL split the already-limited spring football audience in their first head-to-head.
Week one of the USFL season averaged 784,000 viewers across FOX, NBC and FS1, down 50% from last year’s inaugural weekend (1.57M) and easily the least-watched opening weekend of a spring football league in the flurry of launches the past five years. That comes with an important caveat; the USFL is the first of the leagues to reach a second season.
Sunday’s Michigan-Houston game on NBC topped the charts at a 0.60 rating and 974,000 viewers, down 43% in ratings and 55% in viewership from the same matchup in the same week one window last year (1.1, 2.15M). Saturday’s FOX games — New Jersey-Birmingham in primetime (864K) and Philadelphia-Memphis in the afternoon (837K) — each averaged a 0.54 and fewer than 900,000. As one would expect, neither came close to last year’s Saturday night league opener, which aired on both FOX and NBC in primetime (1.8, 3.07M).
The lone game on cable, Pittsburgh-Orlando on FS1 Sunday evening, averaged a 0.31 and 483,000 — down 21% and 37% respectively from Philadelphia-New Orleans on USA last year (0.39, 771K).
Beyond the expected loss of novelty from year one to year two, the USFL this year contends with competition from the XFL. While the USFL delivered the top spring football audience of the weekend with Michigan-Houston on Sunday, its season-opening Saturday doubleheader was outdrawn by ABC’s Vegas-Houston XFL game earlier in the day (0.53, 878K).
The USFL won the two direct head-to-heads over the weekend, but in both cases the USFL was on broadcast and the XFL on cable. NBC’s Michigan-Houston USFL outdrew ESPN’s Arlington-DC XFL on Sunday afternoon (0.37, 670K) and Philadelphia-Memphis on FOX Saturday night trounced Orlando-San Antonio on ESPN2 (0.12, 235K).
The XFL also took a hit from the competition. ESPN’s two games Sunday — the aforementioned Arlington-DC and Seattle-St. Louis (0.33, 570K) — trailed its two games the prior weekend (Vegas-St. Louis: 0.46, 868K; Arlington-Orlando: 0.36, 679K). ABC’s Vegas-Houston was no match for Houston-San Antonio six days earlier, which faced the final round of the Masters (0.52, 1.01M). ESPN2’s Orlando-San Antonio not only trailed its prior week matchup (DC-Seattle: 0.28, 487K) but ranked as the least-watched XFL game on one of the main ESPN networks all season.
It should be noted that while the USFL had the top overall audience between the two leagues over the weekend, the XFL took the top two spots in adults 18-49 with Arlington-DC on ESPN (275K) and Vegas-Houston on ABC (231K).
(Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 4.18)
