UFL Attendance Avgs

[4th&long]

Here's what we have so far...

Fully Yr Avg Attend     (Nielsen TV households/Rank ; Metro Area pop/Rank) - Reg season only
SA    11,888   (1060k / #31 ; 2704k / #24)
AR     9,887   (3042k / #4 ; 8100k / #4)
Mich   8,134   (1937k / #14 ; 4342k / #14)
Hous  7,056   (2666k / #7 ; 7510k / #5)

     (edit - below four added 6/3)

Birm 10,255  (766k/ #45; 1184k/  #47)
StL  34,365  (1255k / #24, 2797k / #23)
DC  14,163 (2617k / #8; 6305k / #7)
Mem 6,893 (644k / #52; 1336k / #45)

Clearly none of these is reaching expectations or potential. 

I think AR is the biggest head scratcher with the teams all practicing there local news has the access.  Having the NBA Mavs and NHL Stars in the Semifinals likely is sucking alot of oxygen as is having the world series champ Texas Rangers, but still its a large metro area and they're practicing in market.

Michigan had that late ticket sale availability delay that cost them, plus the Lions have their best year in 30 or 60 years.  But if any team has #'s that look to match actual butts in seats its Mich.

Houston - Rice Stadium not cutting it - can they go back to TDECU Stadium in 2025?  Hopefully.  In the end all the huff over branding USFL/XFL didn't seem to help much.

SA - while doing ok in absolute terms is under performing also.  And they likely have the best potential of the 7 teams not StL.  Its a Large Metro Area, decent financial demos and has a dome to avoid heat and weather. There's no NFL/MLB team there nor NHL.  The NBA Spurs were dreadful.
The AAF was getting about 27k avg (though tix may have been cheaper) they still got near StL numbers.  Putting Hines Ward there in 2023 likely didnt help but since they 86'd their sales person after game one 2023 it hasn't been the same.  Let's see what happens if they host a playoff game and 2025 with a full year and winning does for the market.

I think all these markets re 100% keepers due to size, location and cost factors... at least for 2025.

Target avg for 2025?:

AR - 14k
Hous - 12-12.5k
Mich - 10500-11k
SA - 16-18k with Stretch 20k+

Thoughts?

 

[MGB01]

Careful, your recognize-the-real is showing.

SA is doing bare minimum and Arlington underachieved because of team performance/Cowboy backlash (AR: hey look a DFW team in the conference finals! DC: What's that?), but I wonder if you'll do the same next week after the -time showdown (whoever the hell decided to keep that at 7:00 on Sunday needs to be fired)--since it's the only market you can't really tie back to the "Hollywood production", at least as far you rationalize it.

You might wanna sit this one out.

[4th&long]

https://www.si.com/fannation/ufl/ufl-ne ... e-problems

>>That can’t go over well in the league office. And the league office is taking the blame.

 “I think there’s responsibility on our side with us not getting the (XFL-USFL) merger done as quickly as we had hoped to,” UFL executive vice president of football operations Daryl “Moose” Johnston told Action News 5 in Memphis recently.

 “You know early on in the season, we’d only been a league for a short period of time. Your marketing groups not up, your ticket sales aren’t up, you haven’t finalized your schedule yet, so how can you have ticket sales?”<<

[MGB01]

And which teams are bringing up the bottom, did these teams not exist last year? You know, "isn't even close"? So is that why Michigan beat anything they had last year, which wasn't much, for the opener and then dropped nearly a third by game three? But it's nice to see Moose essentially acknowledge their inflated ball-spiking was just that.

Now, why are the guys taking their cue from Reddit? I've mentioned them twice here but I give them about as much cred as I do the Lolbertarian Party.

Bottom teams were hosting this week, bottom attendance, news at 11....................................what's next? Houston and Memphis might both need a makeover in the offseason?

[Vamanos_Brahmas]

Check yourself, San Antonio isn't a "bottom" team last I checked... both in record and in attendance.  They're in the top four in each.

[MGB01]

Check yourself, San Antonio isn't a "bottom" team last I checked... both in record and in attendance.  They're in the top four in each.

 

 

The reference to Moose's pouting last year about ratings gave away whom I was taking about (HINT: the game of no-time)

[4th&long]

Check yourself, San Antonio isn't a "bottom" team last I checked... both in record and in attendance.  They're in the top four in each.

V_B

For SA... what would be a good Attend estimate for 5 games in 2025 would be based on prior years and leagues?

[Vamanos_Brahmas]

Based on ALL Spring football in San Antonio that I've been alive for and been at?  I'd say 15,000 is a good goal for our attendance. 

USFL/WLAF/CFL all drew around 12-15k.  I think the AAF/XFL hit at the peak 'hungry for spring ball' time which was then smacked with COVID.  I think the modern UFL when marketed fully in an offseason will bring 15k and if it continues from that, will wipe away the bad image of the AAF in San Antonio (they stiffed local businesses for over 4M dollars.) 

[mciver40]

Final Attendance averages by conference
USFL:
Birmingham- 10,192
Michigan- 8,134
Houston- 7,056
Memphis- 6,893

XFL:
STL- 34,365
SA- 11,888
Arlington- 9,887
DC- 14,143

Only 1 USFL team averaged over 10k this year which was probably the smallest market in the UFL this year. They were also carried by the home opener and AJs return, other than that attendance was lackluster. Although they did have other issues such as weather affecting games. Hopefully Michigan gains some traction next year with earlier ticket sales and having a solid year. Houston and Memphis were just nonexistent this year, much like Vegas last year. Houston probably sees an uptick if they move back to TDECU.

On the flip side only 1 XFL team averaged under 10k in Arlington. As mentioned earlier, that is interesting considering the large market and it's the hub of the league. I'd say DC and STL did how most would expect. SA will hopefully see an increase next season with some league stability and on the field success. I think that 15k target for them is a really good number for them.

Overall a mixed bag for the season. I think with a year under their belt and marketing/ticket sales earlier in the year will help next years numbers.

[GregParks]

Overall a mixed bag for the season. I think with a year under their belt and marketing/ticket sales earlier in the year will help next years numbers.

This has been what a lot of fans are hoping for, but as has been mentioned by Reid on the Markcast a few times recently, as far as we know, the league is still going to seasonal employment for many of its ticket people and potentially other employees. Very hard to market and pound the pavement to sell tickets when those employees are put on seasonal contracts.