Weather didn’t do the new United States Football League any favors this weekend, but the made-for-TV product still did pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty good.

And it might have even sapped some eyeballs from the NBA playoffs.

Easter Sunday TV audience numbers saw nice upticks for basketball, golf and auto racing, suggesting that, thanks to Nielsen now measuring out-of-home viewing, the holiday could join Thanksgiving and Christmas as red-letter live sports programming days.

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Saturday night’s USFL reboot premiere simulcast on Fox and NBC averaged 3.06 million viewers for New Jersey-Birmingham.

That’s about on par with the inaugural game for the AAF in 2019 and XFL in 2020 and breaks down as 1.75 million for Fox and 1.31 million for NBC, per data from ShowBuzz Daily. Viewership peaked at 3.5 million at 10:45 p.m. as Birmingham won in a thriller.

Spring Pro Football Game 1 TV viewership

(Table data via Sports Media Watch)

“I would never have really thought the USFL would get to the 3 million mark. The brand is not well known,” said Jon Lewis, who analyzes viewership at Sports Media Watch, adding that the networks opted for limited hype leading up to the games. “Fox and NBC have to be overjoyed, more for the Sunday numbers. And I wouldn’t have assumed even 2 million for the first game. There’s a lot to be happy about if you’re Fox and NBC.”

On Easter Sunday, the hour-delayed Houston-Michigan game kicked off just before 1 p.m. and averaged 2.15 million viewers on NBC, while the 5 p.m. Philadelphia-New Orleans game averaged 771,000 viewers on USA Network.

“There is clearly an Easter effect there was not before,” Lewis said. He noted that Sunday’s PGA Tour tournament final round and the NBA playoffs had their best TV numbers in years.

Previously, Easter was not sports-friendly. Even the numbers for the Masters were depressed in years when golf’s marquee event wrapped up on the holiday.

“Easter is going to become a day people seek out to schedule games,” Lewis said.

NBC, which ended its NHL broadcast relationship last year after 16 seasons, will fill some of its former hockey airtime with USFL content. Lewis said the network’s Capitals-Bruins game a year ago in the equivalent time/day slot did just over 1 million viewers, so doubling that this year was a win for NBC.

Overall, the USFL did well despite weather issues, and delays are notorious for sapping viewership.

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Houston’s victory Sunday afternoon was in front of a mostly empty Protective Stadium because of thunderstorms that caused the delay. It was an unlucky turn for the new league that’s expected to live or die by TV viewership because audiences have indicated they dislike live sports broadcasts without fans in the stands.

The late Tampa Bay-Pittsburgh game on FS1 was weather-delayed to Monday, and its viewership data isn’t yet available.

Because the new USFL is a Fox-owned property and designed to limit costs as lower-tier programming as it finds its legs, the viewership expectations and financial success metrics are much lower than with NFL games. We just don’t know what the pass-fail thresholds are because the networks are not saying.

Additionally, the TV industry has experienced seismic shifts accelerated by the pandemic, in terms of cord-cutting, new streaming services popping up and Americans generally watching less prime-time TV. All that plus the advent of Nielsen’s OOM metrics (people watching at bars, restaurants, hotels or while gathered at other homes) since 2020 has meant comparisons with older programming such as the AAF and XFL are not exactly apples-to-apples.

Still, we can safely assume some of the USFL viewership was curiosity-fueled, and some sets of eyeballs will not return. Week 2 might give a more realistic picture of viewership expectations.

Lewis said if the day-delayed Monday evening game averaged 500,000 viewers on FS1, it would be a major victory because it would mean viewers are willing to seek out the new league on TV.

The USFL also started amid the NBA playoffs, which meant a lot of fans were glued to basketball instead of springtime football. The biggest audience for any live sports broadcast last week was the Nets-Celtics game tipping off at 3:30 p.m. Sunday, averaging 6.9 million viewers on ABC as Houston-Michigan was winding down a much-improved second half.

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That was the most-watched NBA opening weekend game since 8.37 million viewers watched the Trail Blazers-Lakers opener in 2002 on ABC.

Saturday night’s Nuggets-Warriors game at 8:35 p.m., which was an hour into the inaugural USFL game, averaged 4.52 million viewers on ABC.

That surprised Lewis, who said he expected a better audience for what’s been an NBA TV powerhouse. On the same weekend in 2019, the Warriors averaged 4.8 million viewers for a playoff game, he said.

“That Warriors game did not do as well as expected. The USFL may have pulled viewers away from Steph Curry,” Lewis said.

Still, the NBA did its best TV numbers in 11 years, he said, averaging 4.05 million viewers across ABC, ESPN and TNT.

Sunday’s early prime-time Philadelphia-New Orleans USFL game was up against the Bulls-Bucks game that tipped off at 6:38 p.m. on TNT and averaged 4.77 million viewers.

The NBA is a legacy sports property with a large, devoted fan base, so its playoff games beating the USFL isn’t surprising — spring pro football is a niche product.

The networks have not disclosed their USFL viewership expectations, but because it’s owned by Fox Sports, there are no expensive (or even cheap) broadcast rights payments. Fox and NBC can sell the ads, limit expenses such as travel by playing all games in one city for now, and pay players far less than NFL salaries (which is a separate labor-capital conversation).

Fox and NBC, in opting to experiment with spring football again, opted to launch the USFL this past weekend because it was after the Final Fours and the Masters. The sports calendar doesn’t have an ideal spot for a 10-week regular season (and three playoff games in July), but springtime is the least problematic — no one is interested in making the same ginormously expensive and fatal mistake of challenging NFL and college football dominance in the fall.

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This weekend also had strong sports viewership for the final round of the PGA Tour’s RBC Heritage on Sunday, which averaged 3.67 million viewers on CBS, and Fox’s NASCAR coverage, which averaged 4 million viewers for Sunday evening’s dirt track race. ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball averaged 1.11 million viewers for the Braves-Padres.

Here is the USFL’s Week 2 TV schedule:

• Michigan Panthers at New Jersey Generals, 8 p.m. Friday, USA Network
• Pittsburgh Maulers at Philadelphia Stars, noon Saturday, Fox
• Birmingham Stallions at Houston Gamblers, 7 p.m. Saturday, FS1
• New Orleans Breakers at Tampa Bay Bandits, 3 p.m. Sunday, NBC

— All viewership data is Nielsen and Adobe Analytics metrics via the TV networks, Sports Media Watch, ShowBuzz Daily and the leagues.

(Photo: Michael Wade / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)