PFT: XFL, USFL TV ratings finish in a “dead heat”

[4th&long]

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2 ... dead-heat/

>> The USFL’s regular season has ended. It’s time to compare viewership from the second season of the four-letter spring league with the return of the XFL for first time since 2020.

Via Anthony Crupi of Sportico.com, the two leagues “finished in a dead heat.”

Per the report, the XFL averaged 602,073 viewers per game, and the USFL averaged 604,175 per game.

The USFL still has its postseason, with two games this weekend followed by the championship game.

It’s not great, but it’s not horrible, either. The question becomes the ratings that the networks televising the games would have generated with other (cheaper) programming.

Can both of these leagues survive? Either? Neither? A merger would make a lot of sense, expanding the USXFL or UXFL (or SUXFL) to 16 teams and creating a greater sense of competition for supremacy.

The NFL is the pinnacle of pro football. Everything else pales in comparison. Which explains why every other effort at an alternate league, including the one the NFL kept going for nearly a generation, eventually fails. <<

1) Hey Mike can you plug the NBC games on PFT at least to gives ratings a boost?

2) I actually have XFL at 617k avg, just fyi using Showbuzz. Either way dead heat.

3) Of course NFL is pinnacle... there are no other pro leagues in USA until last couple of years. CFB does well too though and that's TONS of CFB games. NFL 285 games a year, USFL/XFL 43 each.
NFL avg 16.7mm with streaming reg; spring FB 2023 is about 4% of that figure. Granted spring FB isn't airing on USA/FX/ESPN2/FS1 and excludes streaming.

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2023/0 ... hit-highs/

[Sykotyk]

Really shows that the audience for these two leagues is basically one-in-the-same. Sure, there's differences in home markets watching their teams (and USFL would definitely get a kick upwards if 5 of the 8 were playing in real home markets, but they'd also lose those home fans from their TVs, too).

In the end, it's like MACtion. It's just football fans wanting to watch football when it's not usually on. And it seems like without a lot of advertising/promotion this is about the level we're going to get. It's really whether Fox and ESPN (and to an extent, NBC) are content with the numbers considering the cost.

And the thing is, with live TV being such a hard thing to secure, anything that draws live eyeballs is not something networks can just snub their nose at.