The US football leagues XFL and USFL are again unable to convince with their TV ratings this season. Is a merger a possible solution to the problem?

In the USA, the NFL is at the top. TV ratings-wise. While an NFL game was watched by an average of almost 17 million viewers last season, the smaller football leagues lag far behind.

This is now shown by the latest ratings of the USFL (United States Football League) and the XFL of co-owner Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. 602,073 viewers watched the XFL on average. For the USFL it is 604,175.

Not disastrous numbers, but not particularly good ones either. Especially with the background that the respective stations with much “cheaper” broadcasting material could probably have shown similar numbers.

Merger of both leagues as a possible opportunity

“ProFootballTalk” is therefore talking about a merger of the two leagues. “A merger would make a lot of sense, expand the USXFL or UXFL (or SUXFL) to 16 teams and create greater competition for supremacy,” writes Mike Florio. However, there are currently no concrete talks.

So far, no football league besides the NFL has been able to establish itself on the US market for several years. Florio also sees good opportunities for the two minor leagues in the new sports betting regulations. “Maybe the legalisation of gambling will lead to people being more interested in betting on the games and then following them.”

In the US, the XFL and USFL run during the NFL-free period from mid-February to early July.