Wk 7 viewership

[4th&long]

>>        Mike Mitchell @ByMikeMitchell #UFL Week 7 TV Ratings News Per sources: This past Saturday afternoon’s marquee @TheUFL matchup between the St. Louis Battlehawks and Birmingham Stallions on FOX averaged 758,000 viewers.

The telecast peaked with 1.452 million viewers from 7-7:15pm.<<

Two smaller markets going up against the NBA Playoffs - not great .  I had this sub 1mm but not quite this low.

[laxtreme56]

Well that's disappointing.

[4th&long]

Well that's disappointing.

But not surprising based on prior data...   My full year forecast I have this at 725k but got a little giddy with the hype... upped it to 950k in the weekly predictions thread.  I should have left it.  And the NBA game started before the UFL BH-Stallions game too:

NBA Saturday Ok at Dallas 3:30pm game 3

ABC also drew a 2.0 (-4%) and 3.87 million (-1%) for Thunder-Mavericks Game 3
https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2024/0 ... -declines/

It wasn't a super huge number, just large, andt it took some viewers away for sure.,

[XFL4ever]

I never saw any ads hyping up this big matchup on Fox. 

[laxtreme56]

I never saw any ads hyping up this big matchup on Fox. 

I actually saw a few throughout the week and on FS1

[MGB01]

As low as it is, it took away from them too, 3-4 mil for a playoff game OTA? Hell ESPN did that (and more) last week and they were down

[4th&long]

>>        Mike Mitchell @ByMikeMitchell #UFL Week 7 TV Ratings (Average Viewership, *Per Nielsen)
Saturday 5/11
Memphis-Arlington (ESPN): 586,436
St.Louis-Birmingham (FOX): 758,284

Sunday 5/12
Michigan-D.C. (ESPN): 665,001
San Antonio-Houston (ESPN): 572,585
#UFL2024 #UFLTVRatings  11:45 AM · May 14, 2024  <<

Mother's Day (and w/e) not kind to UFL, worse week with 3 cable games, not unexpected, but not fun

Avg for week 646k.  My preseason estimate for this week was 656k, so no surprise

Having said that WAY up on Wk 7 2023

XFL Avg: 350k
USFL Avg: 347k

 

[MGB01]

Good news is mostly team-related. Let's face it, not the best week (outside of STL/BIR) for matchups:

0-6 vs 1-5 (lost five straight)
Playoff teams that are reduced by injuries
The mysterious regression of Reggie Barlow
Curbuck

Also seeing that it was the last cable-centric weekend and it's mostly ABC and FOX from here out puts the OTA theory back into play.

Take the "L" (though not really that much of one) and move on

[GregParks]

Also seeing that it was the last cable-centric weekend and it's mostly ABC and FOX from here out puts the OTA theory back into play.

Take the "L" (though not really that much of one) and move on

This is fine for now, but I do wonder how long ABC and FOX are willing to give the UFL such prime real estate. I get that it's in their best interests since they both (apparently) own part of the league; I just have a hard time envisioning more and more games NOT being kicked down to ESPN and FS1 for various reasons. And if that's the case, they do need to show decent ratings even for cable. 

[MGB01]

Also seeing that it was the last cable-centric weekend and it's mostly ABC and FOX from here out puts the OTA theory back into play.

Take the "L" (though not really that much of one) and move on

This is fine for now, but I do wonder how long ABC and FOX are willing to give the UFL such prime real estate. I get that it's in their best interests since they both (apparently) own part of the league; I just have a hard time envisioning more and more games NOT being kicked down to ESPN and FS1 for various reasons. And if that's the case, they do need to show decent ratings even for cable. 

Oh of course, this is what regionalization was made for. A few days ago I said there's no real reason to have all 40 games in their own windows. Regionalization took it down to 37, and we'll undoubtedly see more going forward.

SA/Hou, not only was the worst of football 2017 (the Tennessee Vols QB room that went 0-for-the-SEC, a QB from the Browns) but also had the misfortune of AJ Smith's (NFL GM) death being announced during the game AJ Smith (SA OC) was coaching in. Right now that's a slightly humorous but eerie aside, a year or so from now this is a problem. Which is why I said never speak of this game again (but the fact this somehow still got relatively healthy numbers is somewhat of a W).