Things continue to go poorly for America’s newest spring football league.
The Fox-owned UFL — which broadcasts games across Fox, FS1, ABC, and ESPN — has gotten off to a rough start from a viewership perspective in its first two weeks. And the Week 3 numbers offered only slight reprieve.
According to David Rumsey of Front Office Sports, UFL viewership is down 33% so far compared to its inaugural season last year. Data provided by pro football writer Mike Mitchell indicates that the league averaged 666,000 viewers per telecast for its four games last weekend, the highest weekly average the league has secured so far this season. Unfortunately, that average still sits well below the UFL’s season-long average of 816,000 viewers per game last year.
Sunday featured the league’s most-watched game of the season by far. The DC Defenders’ win over the St. Louis Battlehawks averaged 967,000 viewers on ABC as the second leg of a doubleheader. It was an impressive figure considering the game went directly against CBS’s final round coverage of the Masters. Prior to Sunday, no UFL game had eclipsed the 700,000-viewer mark this season.
But even with the slight bounce-back, the league seems to be in dire straights. Three of the league’s eight teams have already lost their head coach. Both Ken Whisenhunt and Wade Phillips departed their roles this week, and the Defenders’ Reggie Barlow bolted for Tennessee State less than a week before the season began.
Perhaps more concerning, however, is the quality of play. Through 12 games this season, only one has seen both teams score over 20 points. 10 out of 12 games have seen at least one team score 12 or fewer points. The UFL is not producing an attractive brand of football.
Individual player stats look just as ugly. Five of the league’s eight starting quarterbacks have completion percentages under 55%, with several sitting under 50%. Only one quarterback has thrown for more than two touchdowns through three games. The league’s best rusher is averaging a meager 63 yards per game. You get the idea.
The UFL’s problem is that the product looks as if it’s a game of football played between guys that wouldn’t sniff an NFL roster. And that’s likely because, barring a few players each year, none of these guys will ever sniff an NFL roster.
At the end of the day, no matter how great the UFL’s television windows are, no matter how great the production quality is, it’s all just putting lipstick on a pig. If the quality of play isn’t there, there’s really not much for people to get excited about.