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XFL Week Two: TV Ratings Dive, But Bookmakers Happy

Ratings for the first week were higher than most observers expected, but they fell sharply for the second round of games. The Saturday game (Chicago Enforcers v Los Angeles Xtreme ) televised on NBC was listed under "Saturday's Losers" by mediaweek.com, which posted this comment Monday (the first number shown is the rating, which is the percent of all television households; the second number is the share, which is the percent of households watching TV at the time):

"Although erosion in week two for NBC's XFL Football was a given, the dip from last week's first place finish (10.5/17) to this past Saturday's last place 4.6/ 8 – down a massive 56 percent – was greater than anyone even anticipated. Based on fast nationals, XFL dropped to 6.4 million viewers with a 2.9/ 8 among adults 18-49 – 9.29 million less viewers than last week's debut. Apparently TV watchers were not too enthralled with what they saw last week."

Despite the huge drop, the rating still exceeded the rating that was guaranteed to advertisers.

After the first week, Rob Terry, director of sports betting for Station Casinos in Las Vegas, predicted that the number of wagers and the volume of wagers at his chain's books would "more than double" in the second week.

That didn't happen, but the action did increase. Terry told RGT Online that the volume of betting increased 32 percent from the first week to the second. "I'll take that anytime," Terry said, although he said the players beat the house at Station both on Saturday's and Sunday's games.

The combined betting volume for the four weekend XFL games was double the volume for Sunday's NBA All-Star game, Terry said. He thinks XFL business will continue to build, and that the league has a bright future.

Spiro Athanis, who runs Olympic Sports in Jamaica, said his volume and the number of bets both increased from the first week to the second. "There was more interest, and more money," he said. "The wise guys seem to be tuning in. As more games are played, they get more information and get more interested."

While Athanis generally kept a limit of $1,000 on XFL bets, "I took a few five-dime bets, when I had two-way action," he said.

For the first week, Athanis said the wagering at his site on the combined XFL games was comparable to the activity on the combined NHL games. For the second week, the XFL business exceeded the NHL business, he said, but not the volume on the NBA All-Star game.

"This will grow next week," Athanis said. "People like to bet football."

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