Guardians draw average of 1.14M TV viewers in season opener

The newly rebooted XFL delivered solid television viewership numbers in its first week, with the four games averaging 1.29 million viewers.

ESPN’s broadcast of the Orlando Guardians season opener against the Houston Roughnecks on Saturday night averaged 751,000 viewers (8:30 p.m.), while the subsequent broadcast on FX averaged 390,000, according to showbuzzdaily.com. The total viewership for Orlando’s 33-12 loss was 1.14 million.

It was the third-highest-rated game of the schedule behind the St. Louis Battlehawks-San Antonio Brahmas (ABC, 1.57 million) and Arlington Renegades-Vegas Vipers (ABC, 1.53 million) but ahead of the Seattle Sea Dragons-D. C. Defenders (ESPN, 918,000).

The viewership figures are down considerably from the last time the XFL played in 2020 with the opening game averaging 3.30 million viewers on ABC, according to Sportsmediawatch.com. The USFL’s 2022 season opener on FOX/NBC averaged 3.07 million viewers while the CBS broadcast of Alliance of American Football’s opening game in 2019 averaged 3.25 million viewers.

The original XFL had an average of 15 million viewers for its opener in 2001.

The Guardians broadcast was up against the NBA’s All-Star dunk contest, which led all sporting events on Saturday, averaging 3.42 million viewers on Turner Sports and Fox’s broadcast of the Michigan State-Michigan men’s college basketball game that averaged 1.39 million viewers.

Orlando coach Terrell Buckley said he was impressed by what he saw when watching Sunday’s games.

“Watching all the games on the TV was the real deal,” he said. “I was pretty pumped, and it looked like some very good football games were being played across the country. That’s what you want and that’s what you envision.

“That D.C. game was exciting to watch and I was sitting on the edge of my seat watching what’s going to happen in the last minute of the St. Louis game.”