At the end of the day, the United Football League is a television show.
In that regard, it’s doing well. But getting people to actually go to games continues to be a challenge.
The league’s 2026 regular season is over, and average announced attendance was off 16 percent from 2025. The numbers are below:
| Team | G | Total | Avg. | Median | High | Low | Change | Pct. Cap |
| St. Louis Battlehawks | 5 | 114,120 | 22,824 | 21,609 | 31,191 | 18,563 | -22.7% | 33.9% |
| Louisville Kings | 5 | 55,975 | 11,195 | 10,456 | 14,034 | 10,025 | N/A | 75.6% |
| Columbus Aviators | 5 | 51,808 | 10,362 | 9,217 | 14,810 | 8,347 | N/A | 51.9% |
| Orlando Storm | 5 | 49,148 | 9,830 | 9,735 | 11,127 | 8,585 | N/A | 38.5% |
| DC Defenders | 5 | 45,000 | 9,000 | 7,950 | 12,167 | 7,019 | -30.9% | 45.0% |
| Birmingham Stallions | 5 | 41,242 | 8,248 | 5,253 | 18,340 | 4,705 | -22.6% | 17.5% |
| Dallas Renegades | 5 | 30,773 | 6,155 | 5,799 | 8,717 | 4,001 | -37.0% | 56.0% |
| Houston Gamblers | 5 | 29,943 | 5,989 | 5,166 | 7,744 | 4,409 | 4.8% | 29.0% |
| UFL TOTAL | 40 | 418,009 | 10,450 | 8,918 | 31,191 | 4,001 | -15.7% | 36.9% |
A few notes:
- Every returning team from 2025 was down in average announced attendance except for Houston, where the re-branded Gamblers improved by around five percent but still were the worst-drawing team in the league.
- The new markets – Louisville, Orlando and Columbus – out-performed the legacy markets, but by just 19 fans per game (10,462 to 10,443).
- St. Louis’ slide continued in 2026. After a 14 percent drop from 2024 to 2025, the Battlehawks’ average crowd fell another 23 percent in 2026. They’ve gone from averaging 34,365 to 30,064 to 22,824 in three years. (That still leads the league, obviously, but it’s concerning.)
- The move from Arlington to a downsized soccer stadium in Frisco did nothing for the Renegades, whose average attendance fell 37 percent. (Their last game was in a makeshift stadium on an army base, which didn’t help.)
- The DC Defenders, who didn’t move, saw a 31 percent drop, and averaged an even 9,000 announced per game. They’ll host the United Bowl, and will be in the game if they can beat first-place Orlando in the semifinal.
- That semifinal was originally going to be held at a neutral site in Columbus because Orlando’s stadium is unavailable this weekend, but now it will be played in a 10,000-seat stadium in Daytona Beach1After fan backlash? Really?. Season ticket holders will get free tickets and everything else will be $10 for general admission.
That’s the bad news. The good news is that a decent number of people will watch this league on television, reportedly around 630,000 households per telecast2I’d link somewhere here, but the sources are mostly fanboys who don’t deserve the click.. When your league is co-owned by a network (FOX), that obviously helps.
It feels like as long as there’s a TV audience, this league is somewhat sustainable, but unless they can start drawing more than 8,683 per game outside of St. Louis, they’re going to have a hard time making people believe there’s a huge market for spring football. It’s been 40 years since the USFL went under, and while some of the spring leagues that have cropped up since then have been sort of fun and/or entertaining, none have been able to last.
Because, at the end of the day, it’s not just more football people want – it’s more NFL football. There are those who will watch any random collection of 22 guys running into each other for three hours in a league where a handful of guys get NFL shots, but not enough to make this latest effort truly meaningful.
