United Bowl draws 985,000 viewers on ABC

The UFL is generally holding its own.

Via Manny Soloway of Awful Announcing, the spring league’s championship game between the Louisville Kings and D.C. Defenders attracted an average of 985,000 viewers on Saturday afternoon. The game. a 27-20 win by Louisville, was televised by ABC.

It’s a slight increase from last year’s UFL title game, which came in at 983,000 viewers.

The number for the United Bowl is down from both of the semifinal games for the 2026 UFL postseason. The ABC game between the D.C. Defenders and Orlando Storm averaged 1.01 million viewers. On Fox, the Louisville Kings vs. the St. Louis Battlehawks averaged 1.07 million viewers.

The United Bowl began at 3:00 p.m. ET on Saturday, June 13, with the World Cup as its primary competition.

The viewership reconfirms the notion that the UFL has found a niche. Given the general difficulties of networks to attract significant audiences, the performance is sufficiently solid to justify a continuation of the first spring league experiment that seems to be working.

The broader questions are whether there’s a higher ceiling, how high it may be, and can the UFL get there?