We kind of knew this was going to happen. Here are the XFL ratings for Week 4.
#XFL Week 4 Ratings
Saturday 2/29
ABC: Wildcats @ Guardians 1.558 million viewers
Fox: Dragons @ BattleHawks 1.802 million viewersSunday 3/1
FS1: Roughnecks @ Renegades 1.113 million viewers
ESPN 2: Defenders @ Vipers 1.030 million viewers https://t.co/EUayJYVaDf pic.twitter.com/W4kMR3QAYQ— Mike Mitchell (@MMXFLWriter) March 3, 2020
Those are the numbers, but let’s add a little context. The XFL had its viewership numbers drop in three out of the four games from Week 3 to Week 4. Numbers actually went up slightly for the game on FS1 on Sunday.
There’s actually some good news throughout the ratings. First, the XFL actually outrated the NFL Scouting Combine on ABC — which followed the XFL game on Saturday. That’s good. People preferred to watch real football over players working out.
There’s also some good news because this could have been a bad weekend for the XFL. The NBA had some marquee games on. The NCAA is entering its drive to conference tournaments and important conference matchups were on this weekend. MLS had its season kick-off which pushed the XFL game to ESPN2 and losing 500,000 viewers for that game isn’t bad when considering the move to a secondary cable network.
The hope for the XFL has to be that this is the bottom. They can tread water with viewership numbers between one and two million and once the playoffs start there should be a natural boost due to curiosity at a minimum. If these numbers are what the XFL is going to do consistently, that’s not half-bad. It takes time to build interest.
There’s another side to this coin. If the XFL downward trend continues, that’s a huge problem. No one wants to watch something that other people aren’t watching. It’s the whole self-fulfilling prophecy where the XFL is losing viewers which will then cause more viewers to not keep interest. What’s the point of watching?
The hope for the XFL is that this is the bottom. This was their most difficult weekend to date. The problem is that might not be true. We are about to enter March Madness. There will be a weekend with the Masters. There will be bigger NBA games. By the time the XFL gets passed the NCAA tournament, they will have other competition to deal with. Week 5 could be crucial.
