For years, the CFL has been the second biggest professional football league in North America. The NFL has been number one for a while. The key word is ‘professional,’ because college football in the United States—and possibly in Canada—is bigger than the CFL too. The US has over 300 million people, so no one should expect the CFL to compete with the country’s biggest football league when football is also the most popular sport in the US. But what about the UFL? The UFL is the newest professional football league in the US after the XFL and USFL merged.
According to NBC Sports, the UFL’s championship game averaged 983,000 viewers with a peak of 1.2 million on ABC last year. That is down from the 1.57 million average viewers that the league had on Fox in 2024. According to the CFL, 9.9 million Canadians tuned in for at least part of the 111th Grey Cup in 2024 and 4.25 million viewers on average watched the halftime show that was headlined by the Jonas Brothers. Both leagues are nowhere near the NFL. For context, Super Bowl LIX averaged 127.7 million across TV and streaming platforms in the US. There were probably more Super Bowl bettors than there were viewers for the CFL and UFL championship games combined. A lot of good online casinos also have a sportsbook that takes bets on the big games.
Growth
With the NFL on a mission to grow the game of football globally, there should be an opportunity for the CFL or UFL to grow also if the NFL is successful at making the game more popular and creating more football fans in North America and around the world. The NFL has put resources towards making the game more popular in Europe especially.
The CFL has recently averaged around 450,000 to 500,000 viewers on TV. The CFL’s commissioner was quoted by Global News saying “seven of nine teams did not make money last year.” The Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Saskatchewan Roughriders are the teams that made money. The 2024 UFL season averaged 850,000 viewers, according to the league. If true, those numbers don’t look great for the CFL.
Zero-sum game
The CFL has been able to attract some talented American players who don’t sign with an NFL team. Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon played six seasons in the CFL. Moon is also a member of the Canadian Football Hall of Fame. The UFL gives American players another option to play football professionally in the US, not great for Canadian fans hoping to attract those players to Canadian football fields. Another league also means the CFL may have to outbid the UFL for some players.
There is only so much time. Do football fans who already watch the NFL and college football love the sport enough to follow two more leagues? Some might, but for some fans four football leagues is more than they can handle. Those fans will have to choose between the leagues. Football fans can watch the CFL and UFL with a streaming service.