The final ratings for all four XFL games from the past weekend are in, and the numbers look pretty solid.
– DC Defenders vs. Seattle Dragons on ABC (Saturday) – 3.3 million viewers/2.07 rating, 17,163 fans in attendance
– L.A. Wildcats vs. Houston Roughnecks on FOX (Saturday) – 3.29 million viewers, 1.91 rating, 17,815 fans in attendance
– New York Guardians vs. Tampa Bay Vipers on FOX (Sunday) – 3.385 million viewers, 2.10 rating, 17,634 fans in attendance
– Dallas Renegades vs. St. Louis BattleHawks on ESPN (Sunday) – 2.495 million viewers, 1.43 rating, 17,026 fans in attendance
The Washington Times reports that the XFL’s weekend ratings already top the NBA’s average regular season rating of 1.99 million viewers on ESPN, and 1.5 million viewers on TNT last season. The NBA is the most direct sports competition the XFL will have. Of course, there’s still a long way to go as last season’s NFL games averaged over 16 million viewers.
They also noted the attention the XFL got over social media: The league got plenty of attention on Twitter and other social media platforms over the weekend — including from celebrity musician John Legend, who said he would pull for Defenders quarterback Cardale Jones: “I ain’t mad at this XFL action. I’ll be rooting for champion Buckeye QB @CJ1two”
Darrell Rovell of Action Network tweeted out that there was 20x the betting interest in XFL games vs. AAF games. He wrote the following:
The key takeaway was that a notable chunk of bettors were willing to give the newest upstart football league a shot. Both DraftKings and FanDuel said that Saturday’s two games did roughly 20 times the handle that the first two AAF games did a year before. Some of that surely has to do with a more mature betting market, but don’t discount the buzz factor here.
“We saw momentum build on the XFL as the weekend progressed,” said FanDuel spokesman Kevin Hennessy. “Handle on XFL games increased 55% from Saturday to Sunday and bet count increased 31% from Saturday to Sunday.” The most bet game was, not surprisingly, the New York Guardians vs. the Tampa Bay Vipers.
XFL openers do 20 TIMES the betting handle as AAF did a year before https://t.co/Z2yKkPLxso
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) February 10, 2020
