The USFL expected a dip in TV ratings for Week Two. Dip happened. What it means depends on the lens through which the numbers are viewed.
As reported by the Sports TV Ratings Twitter account, the Saturday Maulers-Stars game on Fox drew an average audience of 1.056 million. Sunday afternoon’s Breakers-Bandits blowout on NBC generated 812,000.
In Week One, the Fox and NBC games attracted audiences of 3 million and 2.153 million, respectively.
Those aren’t great numbers for three-letter broadcast TV. That said, and as noted by Sports TV Ratings, NBC’s audience for spring football was larger than its Premier League number or, more importantly for the network that previously televised pro hockey, the USFL on both NBC and Fox outdrew the NHL on ABC.
That said, a Sunday morning F1 event on ESPN picked up a million viewers. In the 18-49 demographic, the audience doubled the Fox and NBC figures for the USFL.