The Spring League has reached the midway point of their six-week regular season. The league’s focus has been on the teams and its players on the field, and rightfully so, but one of the measuring sticks in the growth of the Spring League is its TV ratings on FOX and FS1.
Last fall on FS1, the Spring League averaged just 30,000 viewers per game. Thus far, in 2021, those numbers have improved greatly. The added weekly exposure Saturday afternoons on FOX has helped the Spring League expand its exposure and audience. Here’s a recap of how TSL fared in its opening two weeks. Followed by this past week’s viewership totals.
Week 1: Spring League TV Ratings
Alphas-Aviators, the season-opening game of FS1’s Thursday night Spring League Football doubleheader (5/6), posted 95,000 viewers.
Conquerors-Linemen, the second game of the opening doubleheader on FS1, scored 51,000 viewers.
The Blues-Sea Lions game (5/7) on FS1 averaged 114,000 viewers.
The Spring League’s debut game on FOX between the Generals & Jousters (5/8) drew 380,000 viewers.
Week 2: Spring League TV Ratings
The 5/15 Saturday game in week two on FOX between the Alphas and Conquerors drew 448,000 viewers, up 18% from their week one debut telecast on network television.
Numbers for the 5/15 doubleheader game on FS2 between the Linemen and Aviators were not readily made available by Nielsen Media Research or FOX PR. (Since the broadcast was outside of the top 150, it’s reasonable to assume that the rating was somewhere in the low five-digit viewership area, especially because it was on FS2).
The 5/17 Monday night game on FS1 between the Sea Lions and Generals delivered 106,000 viewers.
The 5/18 game on FS1 featuring the Jousters and Blues, a contest which was rescheduled from Monday Night due to weather issues, drew 50,000 viewers.
Week 3: Spring League TV Ratings
- As the ratings are made available for the TSL games 5/20 on FS1, they will be updated and posted within this article.
The Conquerors downed the Aviators 34-7 in the first game of FS1’s Spring League Football doubleheader (5/20) and the game posted 59,000 viewers, a 97% jump from the 30,000 viewers the league averaged on the network last fall.
The Linemen lambasted the Alphas 47-7 in the second game of the doubleheader (5/20) and it drew 40,000 viewers, up 33% from the 30,000 viewers the league averaged on the network last fall
Quick Take:
The Spring League has to be encouraged by their viewership totals on FOX and FS1 in week 3. The FOX telecast is slightly down from last week. (448-408k). The competition, specifically with the NBA playoffs starting, figured to be a reason for TSL’s dip in viewership but the fall here is not catastrophic. TSL’s viewership totals may dip below 400k in the coming weeks. There are four remaining Spring League telecasts scheduled on FOX with the championship game taking place on June 19th.
The FS1 viewership total on Saturday night is also a respectable figure considering the level of competition. This point of the Spring League season, the 136,000 viewers who watched the Jousters and Sea Lions is TSL’s highest viewership total on cable.
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