XFL Ratings Drop to Last in Time Slot
The novelty factor apparently didn’t last long for the XFL.
NBC’s second broadcast of the new football league owned by the network and the World Wrestling Federation drew about half as many viewers as the debut, despite a boost in the final 45 minutes from the overtime game between the Xtreme and the Chicago Enforcers at the Coliseum.
NBC finished last among the four major networks in prime time Saturday a week after beating ABC, CBS and Fox with the opening of the part-sports, part-spectacle program.
The preliminary overnight rating for Saturday’s XFL show was a 5.1, meaning an average of 5.1% of television homes in the country’s largest 49 markets tuned in at any given time.
That’s a huge drop from the 10.3 preliminary Nielsen number last week, and reminiscent of the viewer erosion experienced by the USFL in the 1980s.
Repeating a pattern seen in Week 1, the XFL rating decreased each half-hour from 8 to 10:30 p.m. EST. That was followed by a slight increase for the next 30 minutes, but then the audience expanded by 25% from 11 to 11:45 p.m. as the Xtreme won, 39-32.
There was a major glitch 12 minutes into the show, when an NBC power generator gave out and the feed from Los Angeles was lost. Viewers saw an on-screen graphic for 1 1/2 minutes before being taken to the night’s other XFL game, San Francisco at Orlando, for about 25 minutes.
Still, it took only seven days for the XFL to go from vastly exceeding expectations to hovering right around the 4.5 national rating NBC promised advertisers. National ratings for Saturday night should be released Tuesday.
“We remain a work in progress, and our numbers last night are exactly where we said they would be the last six months,” NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol said.
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Freezing temperatures and 22 mph winds that made it feel like 6 degrees sent most of the 36,458 fans at the New York-New Jersey Hitmen’s home opener at East Rutherford, N.J., to the exits early.
Only about 5,000 fans were left when Charles Puleri’s fourth-and-14 pass from the Birmingham 19-yard line fell incomplete in the end zone, allowing the Bolts (1-1) to defeat the Hitmen, 19-12, in a very sloppily played game. The Hitmen are 0-2.
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Jason Kaiser and Kurt Gouveia scored on long fumble returns and Las Vegas’ defense also set up a field goal as the Outlaws (2-0) defeated Memphis Maniax, 25-3, before a crowd of 30,117 at Memphis, Tenn. The Maniax are 1-1.
Winter Sports
Silke Kraushaar led a German sweep of the women’s World Cup luge race on the Olympic course at Park City, Utah, extending the country’s dominance of the event to 25 consecutive races dating to 1997.
Kraushaar had a two-run combined time of 1 minute 26.800 seconds. She also set track records with a 3.103-second push-start and a single-run time of 43.291.
Sonja Wiedemann, at 1:27.067, and Sylke Otto, at 1:27.138, were second and third. Becky Wilczak of River Forest, Ill., was fourth, almost four-tenths of a second behind Kraushaar.
In men’s doubles, the German team of Patric Leitner and Alexander Resch, who set a track record of 43.138 in their first run Saturday, were timed in 43.426 to win their third World Cup race of the season.
Steffan Skel and Steffen Woller of Germany finished second and Austrian cousins Markus Schiegl and Tobias Schiegl were third. Brian Martin of Palo Alto and Mark Grimmette of Muskegon, Mich., placed fourth.
Miscellany
France’s Amelie Mauresmo finally won a title in her home country, defeating Anke Huber of Germany, 7-6 (2), 6-1, to win the $565,000 Gaz de France tournament. The victory gave the 21-year-old Mauresmo, who was seeded eighth, her third WTA title. Huber, seeded sixth, was playing her first tournament since dropping out of last year’s U.S. Open because of a sprained right wrist.
A Penn State football player who severely injured his spine during a game says he can walk without a cane, write his name and may soon be able to drive again. Adam Taliaferro said he is about 85% recovered and plans to return to Penn State for summer school.
“The first few weeks were very difficult because I didn’t know if I would ever be able to walk,” the 19-year-old freshman defensive back said in a first-person story for the Philadelphia Inquirer. “Then my left toe started to flicker one day, and it was at that point that I felt I could come back.”
Taliaferro was injured making a headfirst tackle against Ohio State on Sept. 23.
European Champions League soccer opponents Manchester United and Valencia were at the center of a match-fixing controversy when one of the Spanish club’s players said the result of last season’s game in the same competition had been “agreed.”
The 0-0 tie in Valencia, Spain, last March ensured that both teams advanced to the quarterfinals. The Spanish club eventually made it to the final and United was defeated by eventual titlist Real Madrid in the semifinals.
The two teams meet again in a second round group game in Valencia on Wednesday and Miguel Angel Angulo is reported in the Spanish media to have told a Web site: “I just hope this match won’t be like the last one when we “agreed” to draw before the game.”
Belarus and France earned the last two berths for next year’s Olympic hockey tournament at Salt Lake City. Belarus defeated Norway, 7-3, in a qualifying tournament at Oslo. Germany beat Ukraine, 3-1, in the other game to win the tournament. Both teams had already qualified.
France clinched the third spot in the other qualifying tournament at Klagenfurt, Austria, defeating Denmark, 2-1. Latvia, returning to Olympic hockey for the first time in 66 years, defeated Austria, 4-3, to win that tournament.
Thousands of onlookers cheered the 19-second implosion of Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh, the 30-year-old home of the Pirates and Steelers. Experts loaded 4,800 pound of dynamite into the mammoth circular stadium last week to clear the way for separate baseball and football stadiums nearby.
Svetlana Feofanova of Russia cleared 15 feet 2 3/4 inches during an indoor meet at Dortmund, Germany, to break her European women’s pole vault record by 2 1/4 inches. She was short of the 15-3 1/4 that Stacy Dragila cleared Friday during a college meet at Pocatello, Idaho, which broke her one-week-old world record of 15-2 1/4.
Heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis is looking at a July 21 date to fight Mike Tyson but has yet to open negotiations with Tyson’s camp. Adrian Ogun, Lewis’ business manager, said on BBC Radio Five Live that he needed to sit down with Tyson’s advisor, Shelly Finkel, to discuss the possibility of a bout that could be worth a record $100 million.
The Rockford Lightning joined the International Basketball League, three days after the Continental Basketball Assn. suspended operations. Former owner Wayne Timpe bought the team back.
Rafael Palmeiro homered on seven consecutive swings in Las Vegas and held on to beat Jose Canseco, 10-9, to win a rematch in the 2001 Big League Challenge. Canseco beat Palmeiro last year.
Ice Dog goalie Marten Engren posted his first shutout of the season in a 4-0 victory over Idaho before 3,018 at Long Beach Arena.
Parker Bohn III became the first person to win his own bowling tournament, the PBA tour’s Parker Bohn III Empire State Open at Latham, N.Y. Bohn defeated Chris Barnes, 210-187, in the title match.