Birmingham Stallions-San Antonio Brahmas on Sunday peaked at 1.72 million viewers from 6:15-6:30pm ETScott Rovak/UFL/Getty Images
Fox drew 1.6 million viewers for the first UFL Championship game on Sunday afternoon, featuring the Birmingham Stallions against the San Antonio Brahmas. That figure is well above the 2023 USFL title game on NBC (1.2 million for Stallions-Pittsburgh Maulers in July) and the 2023 XFL title game on ABC (1.4 million for Arlington Renegades-D.C. Defenders in May). It was the best spring football audience since the USFL drew 2.06 million for a Memphis Showboats-Michigan Panthers game in May 2023 that had the benefit of piggybacking off the Kentucky Derby. The UFL title game was also short of the 2001 XFL title game on NBC (2.91 million viewers). Stallions-Brahmas on Sunday peaked at 1.72 million viewers from 6:15-6:30pm ET.
The Euros are averaging 1.2 million through the first weekend (six matches across Fox and FS1), up 33% compared to the same period during the 2021 UEFA event on ABC/ESPN (901,000 viewers for seven matches). Sunday afternoon’s England-Serbia match on Fox is the top audience thus far with 1.83 million viewers marking the best Euros group stage match on English-language TV since Spain-Italy drew 2.11 million viewers in 2012. Fox also drew 1.1 million viewers for Germany-Scotland in the opener on Friday afternoon, up big from 654,000 viewers for Italy-Turkey on ESPN to open the 2021 event. Miami-Ft. Lauderdale has been the top market for four of those six games on Fox/FS1 through the first weekend. Other strong markets in the U.S. are D.C., New Orleans and San Diego.
The College World Series was averaging 1.2 million viewers after six games in Omaha, marking the best figure through that point on record and up 5% from the same point in 2023. ESPN2 drew 1.7 million for Tennessee-North Carolina on Sunday, which is the Deuce’s second-best pre-Finals CWS game on record (and seventh-best pre-Finals game ever on any ESPN network).
NBC has averaged 3.13 million viewers for the first three nights of the U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials from Indianapolis, up 17% from the first three nights leading into the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. This year’s trials began with a Saturday/Sunday/Monday window, while 2021 was a Sunday/Monday/Tuesday window.
Red Sox-Yankees drew 2.07 million viewers on ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” over the weekend. Neither of the two Yanks-Sox “SNB” games on ESPN last year drew over 2 million (both in mid-June).
The chart below lists viewership figures from select recent sports telecasts.
