The two new leagues who generated headlines at the start of last year are off to slower starts in their sophomore campaigns.
The women’s 3×3 basketball league Unrivaled was averaging 103,000 viewers across TNT and truTV through week three of the season (as of January 26), down 44% from the first three weeks of last year’s inaugural season (185K). Games simulcast on both TNT and truTV are averaging 135,000, while games that are exclusive to truTV are averaging 64,000.
Keep in mind that there are more truTV-exclusive windows this season. Unrivaled has expanded to a fourth night of games (up from three last season), with those additional telecasts airing exclusively on the network.
In addition, fully half of the telecasts (as of January 26) have aired opposite NFL or College Football Playoff games. The two most-watched telecasts — the January 5 season opener (175K) and January 26 (172K) TNT/truTV windows — did not face such competition.
As for the golf league TGL, the second season is averaging 551,000 through six matches (as of January 26) — down 37% from 874,000 through the equivalent date last year (four telecasts). But this year’s slate has included two matches on ESPN2 and one ABC matinee that aired on an NFL Sunday, while all of last year’s comparable telecasts aired on ESPN in primetime.
Compared to last year’s full-season average (498K), TGL is up 11% — though that can be explained by Nielsen’s shift to “Big Data + Panel” methodology. TGL averaged 610,000 on a “Big Data + Panel” basis last year, meaning this year’s average would actually be down 10% on an apples-to-apples basis.
It is typical for the second year of a new league to decline from the first. The UFL averaged 645,000 viewers in its second season last year, down 19% from the inaugural campaign, per UFL News Hub. One of its predecessors, the USFL, declined in its second season back in 2023. And several other leagues, particularly in spring football, failed to finish a first season much less make it to a second.
One exception to the downward trend is League One Volleyball, which last month opened its second season with 138,000 viewers for its inaugural window on USA Network — the largest audience yet for the league, regular season or playoffs. Coverage of LOVB is averaging 108,000 so far this season, up 46% from last year’s full-season average on ESPN2 — with the first four USA Network matches delivering the league’s four-largest regular season audiences.
But that comes with the caveat that ESPN2 aired only two regular season windows last season, with the first coming in mid-February. There were only seven total regular season windows on Nielsen-rated television last year, most of which aired on ESPNU.
