5 February 2001 – UPN’s first game of “XFL Football”, featuring the Los Angeles Xtreme and the San Francisco Demons, premiered with a solid 4.2 rating, 8 share in the metered markets on Sunday afternoon, 4:00pm EST, ranking UPN third in the time period among all network affiliate groups.
In the Demons’ home town of San Francisco (KBHK, 5.3/15) as well as Dallas (KTXA (5.8/12), Las Vegas (KTUD, 4.1/8) and Jacksonville (WTEV, 8.9/14), UPN placed first in the time period.
UPN ranked second in the time period in 11 markets: Los Angeles, home of the Xtreme (KCOP, 5.0/13), Seattle (KSTW, 4.3/11), Tampa (WTOG, 4.9/9), Cleveland (WUAB, 5.7/11), Miami (WBFS, 4.9/10), Phoenix (KUTP, 4.0/9), Sacramento (KMAX, 4.8/11), Indianapolis (WNDY, 5.8/11), Memphis (WLMT, 6.2/10), Norfolk (WGNT, 6.2/10) and Albuquerque (KASY, 3.0/6-tie).
“XFL Football” ranked UPN affiliates third in the time period on average, 4:00pm EST, on average in the metered markets. “XFL Football” topped ABC affiliates’ “NHL All-Star Game”/”Pro Bowl” (3.9/8) along with FOX affilates’ and WB affiliates’ local programming (3.4/7 and 3.0/6, respectively).
UPN doubled its affiliates’ January 2001 time period average (4.2/8 vs. 2.1/4).
Compared to last February’s time period, UPN affiliates grew 31% in rating and 33% in share (4.2/8 vs. 3.2/6).
“XFL Football” drew viewers to UPN affiliates, growing 45% in rating and 33% in share from its lead-in on average (4.2/8 vs. 2.9/6).
Additionally, “XFL Football” out-rated Sunday’s “NHL All-Star Game”, 2:30pm EST on ABC, by 75% in rating and 60% in share (4.2/8 vs. 2.4/5).
UPN Ratings
According to the “fast nationals” that UPN ordered, Sunday’s XFL game garnered a 3.0 rating / 6 share in 309,000 TV households nationally. These numbers should be considered preliminary until the final ratings are available on Thursday.
Since UPN doesn’t normally broadcast on Sunday afternoons there is no national benchmark to compare, but the metered market average (4.2/6) was exactly double what the UPN affiliates averaged in the time period in January.
