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After Week #3 of the USFL’s ten game regular season, the play on the football field remains quite solid, but the interest of the home television viewers may be slowly waning.
The television ratings for Week #3 of the United States Football League’s newest incarnation were released today. It shows a continued gradual erosion of the league’s week-to-week interest by home television viewers.
Last weekend’s marquis match-up Saturday night between the undefeated hometown Birmingham Stallions and 2-0 New Orleans Breakers was carried by Fox television and drew just 1.1 million television viewers. For the record, Saturday night’s game did not go up against the final rounds of the NFL draft (which ended an hour prior to the USFL kickoff).
As we’ve covered here every week, all USFL football regular season games are being played in a brand new football stadium in Birmingham, Alabama. The league is wisely minimizing its first-year expenses (travel, stadium costs, administrative overhead, etc.). However, the trade-off is that three of the four weekly games played in Birmingham continue to draw a tiny smattering of fans in the stands.
This is NOT a knock on the Birmingham football fans.
Would you pay $10 per ticket (a dirt-cheap price) to go watch a football game between Michigan and Pittsburgh in your home town on an 85-degree Sunday afternoon? The lack of energy in the football stadium for games like that can really make for a boring television product.
In contrast, Saturday night’s Birmingham vs. New Orleans USFL football game was another exciting game for television. The hometown Stallions prevailed 22-13 as Birmingham rallied to score the game’s final 12 points in the fourth quarter to win the game in front of about 15,000 local fans. Casual television viewers on a Saturday night apparently had better things to do than watch the USFL’s spotlight springtime pro football game.
The USFL’s goal of 1.4 million television viewers was clearly not achieved in Week #3.
The other three games played this weekend had weak television ratings, too. The Sunday afternoon televised match-up between the Michigan Panthers and Pittsburgh Maulers grabbed only 292,000 sets of eyeballs on the USA Network.
When I attempted to tune-in to watch the Sunday evening finale between the New Jersey Generals and Philadelphia Stars, I learned that the game was being covered by NBC’s online Peacock service. Though I had a free version of Peacock, the game wasn’t shown unless you had agreed to pay Peacock’s “Premium” service fee of $4.99 per month.
Something tells me that the television viewership for the USFL’s first game played on Peacock (which has not been announced as of this story) will set an all-time low for viewership of a nationally televised pro football game.
Fox Sports (which owns 100% of the USFL) previously stated that it wants the new spring football league to average 1.4 million television viewers (every game) to be viable for a second season. Week #1 for the league (as expected) exceeded that number. Week 2’s games fell below the 1.4 million television viewer goal, and Week 3’s television ratings withered even further.
Let’s be blunt.
The USFL’s on-field product is generally “OK” and can be quite entertaining at times. The games are certainly just as good as the most recent iterations of spring football by the Alliance of American Football (2019) and the XFL (2020). Both of those leagues folded prior to the end of their first season. I can’t see Fox pulling the plug on the USFL early as the network has plenty of cash to absorb the losses.
The real question is whether the USFL will be able to turn it around and add new fans for the remaining weeks of the regular season. Many of us are rooting for the USFL to succeed, but America’s appetite for spring pro football has yet to be proven.
The decision to play every single regular season game in Birmingham (a nice enough Southern city) is hurting the TV product as no more than a few hundred fans are in attendance for three of the four weekly USFL games being played in Alabama’s largest city. Televised football games played in a nearly empty stadium simply can’t generate a lot of excitement for at-home viewers. The Birmingham Stallions home games have been attended by respectable crowds of up to 20,000 fans, but the USFL’s TV product is failing to generate enough excitement to hold viewer interest.
The Week #3 television ratings were a bad sign as the league’s interest continues to deflate slowly by the week.
The USFL hasn’t received a great deal of help from a few of the more traditional sports media outlets, either. Good luck trying to find the USFL weekly schedule and game results from ESPN or Yahoo! Sports. The ESPN main website (which contains a separate tab for NBA G-League games and Cricket) shows nothing for USFL. Yahoo’s sports website is also void of a USFL header.
What gives?
ESPN is owned by Disney (which also owns ABC). Yahoo Sports! is owned by NBC. Let’s give a little credit to CBSsports.com as their website continues to feature weekly information about the USFL. CBS was heavily involved in the short-lived Alliance of American Football (AAF) in 2019. Perhaps they are quietly rooting for the USFL to “make it”.
Since the USFL is owned entirely by Fox Sports, the network needs to do a better job in promoting its own USFL weekly schedule.
Fox’ network television competitors aren’t going to help the new league. Fox Sports wants the USFL to grab a higher percentage of the available spring sports television advertising dollars with their new football venture. A successful USFL means that Fox Sports would dominate spring sports television scene and score more advertising revenue than pre-USFL.
Here at home, the potential television audience for USFL football has difficulty simply knowing the game day and television network for the weekly slate of games.
For example, there wasn’t a USFL football game played on a Friday night during Week #1. In Week #2, though, there was a USFL Friday night football game played. In last weekend’s Week #3, there was no game played on Friday night.
So, what’s it going to be this Friday night in Week #4, USFL?
Yes, there will be a game televised (FS1) Friday night at 9PM Central between the Philadelphia Stars and Michigan Panthers. Wait a minute. Those two cities both reside in the Eastern Time zone, so the kickoff for their hometown fans will begin at 10PM on a Friday night? Whose bad idea was that?
The other three USFL games will be played this weekend as follows (all games shown as Central time):
Saturday @ 1:30PM – New Jersey Generals (2-1) vs. Pittsburgh Maulers (0-3) – Peacock TV
Saturday @ 6PM – Tampa Bay Bandits (2-1) vs. Birmingham Stallions (3-0) – Fox
Sunday @ 2PM – Houston Gamblers (1-2) vs. New Orleans Breakers (2-1) – NBC & Peacock
As the NFL can attest, the largest potential television audience for professional football games is on Sunday. The USFL should televise a Sunday doubleheader every week. Perhaps the bigger issue in Year #1 was simply getting enough national television outlets to commit to covering the USFL’s weekly football schedule.
For home viewers like me, the league would benefit from playing its weekly schedule on the same days with the same kick-off times every single weekend.
The USFL weekly television ratings are suffering from a lack of weekly continuity. I don’t mind searching for the television network carrying a particular USFL football game as long I know (with certainty) when the games are being played every weekend. Fan interest will rise once the league adopts a stable weekly football schedule.
I have one final suggestion for the USFL this week. I am not paying $4.99/month for Peacock. If the USFL insists on forcing this option upon its fans, why not get Peacock to simulcast all four USFL games every weekend via the internet to justify the expenditure?
Other than the (yawn) NBA never-ending playoffs, this weekend’s USFL games will have very little in the way of significant sports competition to compete against. The pressure is on. This week’s television ratings must take a step upward to inject a little positive momentum into the new football league.
Check out a USFL game this weekend! Come back next week, and let’s discuss.