Sami Jarjour
The first weekend of XFL games are officially in the books and now it’s time to see if the hype matched with people tuning in. The ratings are out for the first game between the Seattle Dragons and the DC Defenders and it was better than expected as the game drew 3.3 million viewers for a Saturday afternoon broadcast.
The @xfl2020 on ESPN/ABC is off to a strong start! pic.twitter.com/ZjAzmTLmz9
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) February 10, 2020
Last year, the first game for the Alliance of American Football League drew 2.9 million viewers for its first game, but would never reach anywhere close to that number again. Unlike the AAF, the XFL will continue to air their games on ABC, FOX and ESPN throughout the season.
To put this into context with average NBA games… NBA games on national TV drew an average of 885,000 viewers in the U.S. in the first eight weeks of the season, according to Nielsen, compared with about one million over the same period last year and 1.2 million two years ago.
Here’s one way to celebrate the weekend:
The St. Louis Battlehawks celebrate their win by shotgunning cans of… spiked seltzer? ?
(?: @XFLBattleHawks) pic.twitter.com/RVuHwWH85J
— Sports ON Tap (@SONTHighlights) February 10, 2020
