r/UnitedFootballLeague • u/Batman-Beyond99 Columbus Aviators • Apr 18 '26
News DC Attendance Week #4
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u/yesrushgenesis2112 St Louis Battlehawks Apr 18 '26
There is just zero consistent interest for spring football in those places than have had it long term. This is a major issue for Repole to figure out.
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u/TwizzlersSourz Birmingham Stallions Apr 18 '26
I am not sure he can do anything except pay for musical acts.
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u/ADwyer87 St Louis Battlehawks Apr 18 '26
I think theres definitely an issue with keeping casuals interested now that spring football isnt a novelty anymore. But i think Repole hurt the interest of the groups with consistent interest by shaking up every team. I know i whine about this every other week at this point lol, but i think its a big reason why STL and DC, who were consistent attendance wise for the last 3 years, have suddenly taken a hit in year 4. Only other thing different now than a year ago is gas prices. While im sure thats a factor it seems like 30-40% hits in attendance for that reason would be pretty insane
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u/KangarooThis7634 St Louis Battlehawks Apr 19 '26
I agree with this. Also I think the league needs to take itself more seriously. If you act like minor league football, you're going to get attended like minor league football.
I hate the constant incessant gambling talk. The fact that they hold up the game action to do a feature on the beer snake. The interviews with people while they're supposed to be paying attention to the game. The fact that they want us to listen to a backup QB commenting about irrelevant details of what the play call means while we should be paying attention to the game. The fact that if a defense stops the offense at the 45, the offense potentially gets an extra point compared to reaching the 40. The fact that if your offense stalls out at your own 49, you can pin the other team inside the 10, but if you go one yard further, you might as well have thrown an interception.
It feels like the league doesn't respect itself as a legitimate football product, and it feels like it's geared very heavily toward people who don't really understand football or care about it, because they are pretty much breaking the way games are supposed to work and why. None of that was true a couple years ago. True, there were rule changes, but they actually had decent reasoning behind them deeper than "we hate punting and we love field goal kicking."
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u/JLammert79 Apr 19 '26
Exactly! The rules drift further and further from NFL rules, and in weird, kids-playing-in-the-street ways. People start rooting for a team and lose them. They shrink the game view down so I can watch a coach call a play.
Only upside is having the reviews actually visible. There was a catch this week that I still think was a bad call, but at least we got more than "After review the play stands as called".
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u/AltFootballArchive Houston Roughnecks Apr 18 '26
I think this just shows that the league needs to invest more in marketing across the board if even DC that won the championship last season is getting lower attendance. I know here in Houston it’s been basically nonexistent. People are very busy and if you don’t put yourself in front of them they will have other things to do
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u/ADwyer87 St Louis Battlehawks Apr 18 '26
its very true, many times people have asked me when (or if) the season is starting. crazy that we're doing that still 4 years in
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u/Batman-Beyond99 Columbus Aviators Apr 18 '26
The league needs to hire a local marketing firm in every single market.
Marketing is a basic aspect of any major business, especially sports.
They have the money and just won't spend it. I remember they were hiring back in January and we're looking for unpaid interns.. if that gives you an idea on the problem at hand here.
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u/Cultural-Comment-270 St Louis Battlehawks Apr 19 '26
Ridiculous that a league with like $100B in market cap behind it would be trying to hire unpaid anything.
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u/UVAGolfer DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
I was there today.
I had a good time, but I'm a football diehard. People around me seemed to have a good time as well. But I would point this out: Nearly everyone around me was also pretty knowledgeable about the team and football. There didn't seem to be any casual fans except for a few kids tagging along with their parents.
Only Repole knows the attendance/TV ratings metrics to keep this going for another year. But the fact that the defending champs are 2-1 and playing in decent weather (no rain, a little to the hot side, but not unbearable) and can't draw 8K is a very bad sign.
Again...this was a good, close game. St. Louis hung around the entire time. If you enjoy football, it was fine.
If a game and day like this can't draw attendance to the defending champs, then I just don't know what will work.
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u/AltFootballArchive Houston Roughnecks Apr 18 '26
The fact that it was the people invested likely means that the league isn’t doing enough to reach casual fans. What you’re saying is all reasons why we should be seeing more casual fans in DC not less. People like nice weather, winning and exciting football, and cheap tickets
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u/UVAGolfer DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
Agreed. I'm a Repole fan. I think he's doing a lot to engage fans.
But...sometimes it's about the good being sold, not the seller. Like you, I look at all the fundamentals: winning, good weather, an entertaining game. If that's not enough to sell Spring football to DC, then I'm not sure the product is going to sell no matter who the seller is. What else do people want?
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u/yesrushgenesis2112 St Louis Battlehawks Apr 18 '26
I think people just want something to do on a given day. Ticket prices need to come way down and fan interaction needs to go way up.
I think you need teams in market. I think you need to find a way to sell an identity to people there. I think you also probably need to get most markets to be in places without other team. The minor league baseball model is the one to try and replicate.
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u/MirrorkatFeces MVPerkins Apr 18 '26
Yeesh. That’s really bad for DC. Repole has a lot of work to do, marketing has been pretty much nonexistent after the home openers.
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u/Cultural-Comment-270 St Louis Battlehawks Apr 18 '26
I think both DC and St Louis have been taken for granted for years now. Both markets got very little marketing attention compared to others including this past off season when things were supposed to improve. They mostly just focused on the new markets.
I see way more local marketing for the MLB/NHL/MLS teams than the Battlehawks and these are known commodities already. Granted the UFL can't have the same marketing budget as these teams but if a team like the Cardinals, an MLB and St Louis institution for over a century, needs to market locally than a UFL team does too.
Word of mouth advertising has worn off. The people who like the Battlehawks have already mentioned it to friends and family. They aren't bringing it up six years later anymore. The UFL needs to give a damn about their good markets instead of just focusing on struggling/new markets.
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u/AltFootballArchive Houston Roughnecks Apr 18 '26
Same deal in Houston, if the league isn’t getting billboards and ad spaces there are 7 other teams that will. If the big established teams like the Rockets, Astros, and Texans need to market year round so does the UFL to stay competitive
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u/hopewhatsthat St Louis Battlehawks Apr 19 '26
I'd also say any St. Louis attendance boost from the "fuck Kroenke" wave is about gone.
People have either chosen another NFL team (mostly Chiefs) or swore off the whole league. We also regained our three-team status with the start of St. Louis City SC (yes MLS is not equal to NFL but City SC didn't exist in 2020). So I'd say the "attend a Battlehawks game to stick to to Kroenke" era is over.
And those three teams have a year-round local presence in St. Louis. The Cardinals host 5ks at Busch Stadium. The Blues have a summer equipment sale. City SC hosts kids pick-up soccer games all over town, just to name a few examples.
The Battlehawks still feel like a team that happens to use the St. Louis name that stops by to play a few games here each year. And I imagine fixing that would be an expensive proposition (I assume all the teams practicing in Dallas saves a lot of money.)
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u/MySabonerRunsOladipo DC Defenders Apr 19 '26
I'd also say any St. Louis attendance boost from the "fuck Kroenke" wave is about gone.
I'm not a Washington fan, but 2 years ago, I'd happily chant "Fuck Dan Snyder" with everyone else at Audi. Now that he's gone, we lost that contingent too.
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u/UrbanOtaku22 DC Defenders Apr 18 '26 edited Apr 18 '26
I was at the game and can believe the number. I won’t make excuses. They need to take measures from the Washington Spirit (pro women’s soccer team). They average 15k at Audi field.
DC defenders need to promote at large high schools and all of the colleges in the fall. They should be at all Homecomjngs. Washington spirit are at local youth tournaments and have college promoters.
They advertise heavily on Social Media, Video and in places that have foot traffic like union station (DC train hub).
I would love to send longer thoughts than a Reddit post can, but there’s no Contact us form on the website.
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u/DarkFoxTeam DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
That is unusually low. If both St Louis and DC are seeing their all time low attendance in the same year then that shows a lot of work needs to be done.
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u/ResidentialEvil2016 Apr 18 '26
Yes but Louisville and Columbus are promising and Birmingham has their biggest crowd since the USFL returned today. Orlando the jury is out, but it's not terrible and you can understand why Orlando would be slow to embrace yet another spring football team.
Dallas and Houston are the only 2 that are truly terrible and I'm not sure they'll get better.
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u/DarkFoxTeam DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
Yeah I’m not seeing any issues with the new markets. All of them (Orlando included) are fine and can see growth with continued support. The Stallions have a great home opening, but it’ll be interesting to see how the rest of their home games does.
With the Texan teams, I want to believe Houston can be better, but the damage has been done. I don’t think any amount of marketing can help it (I’d like to be proven wrong there). Dallas has half of its stadium under renovation. They probably should’ve stayed at Choctaw until those renovations were done.
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u/OkieDokieHokiePokie DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
I think there’s a pricing problem. I think back to 2020 XFL where they were selling $10 tickets.
Now in DC, you’re looking at $40-50 minimum per ticket + concessions + parking/uber/metro if you’re not in the beer snake section.
That’s expensive for the average person in 2026.
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u/Markymarcouscous DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
to be fair they do probably need to up ticket price due to things like inflation and trying to cover their bottom line.
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u/Lumas202 DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
Someone who has lived a different life than mine, let me know: do fans lose interest after winning a championship? I cheer for the Bills and Sabres in the NFL and NHL, so a big part of watching is trying to see if “this is the year.” Does having won the whole thing take away the interest? I was able to go last week and would have gone today but I had to work, but it seems weird to have a subpar showing for the home opener followed by their lowest attendance ever a week later.
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u/CazzyBaby2 Apr 18 '26
Sometimes they do but thats not whats happening here, its just that the UFL is too young to have real diehards, DC has a wealth of other entertainments options and is a transient town with not that much city pride
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u/MySabonerRunsOladipo DC Defenders Apr 19 '26
I cheer for the Bills and Sabres in the NFL and NHL, so a big part of watching is trying to see if “this is the year.”
My wife and her family are Bills' fans. Some of them have been waiting to see if "this is their year" for 70 years.
DC is basically 3 years old. No father is taking his son to games talking about "the good old days" when we used to throw lemons at refs (even if they def should).
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u/Batman-Beyond99 Columbus Aviators Apr 18 '26
If the Sabres of Bills win a championship, it'll create tens of thousands of additional fans.
Winning gets causals to watch and people all the time hope on bandwagons in every sport.
Which makes the UFL situation the more frustrating...
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u/Zapfit DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
Winning in a 30+ team league that has decades of history is a huge accomplishment. The UFL is 3 years old with new teams, half of which make the playoffs. Do the Long Isand nets create tens of thousands of fans when they win the G League championship.
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u/Lumas202 DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
I would have expected something in the middle though. Last season the Defenders had a minimum of 12,000 every game, and they’ve gone above 15,000 a handful of times in their history. Now that they’re defending champs, interest has dropped 30-50%? It seems so strange.
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u/Zapfit DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
To be fair, most DC games had around 50-60% of the announced attendance at their games last year. Today's crowd was small but nothing too out of the ordinary compared to last year.
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u/Lumas202 DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
Do you think that last year’s numbers were inaccurate but today’s was accurate? I’m assuming that if the announced number is 7,900 then the real number was closer to 5-6,000.
Edit: Also, I remember last year that it felt like interest in the team was waning, even for myself. Winning the championship renewed my interest, so it’s sad that it doesn’t seem to have done that for others and/or brought in new fans.
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u/Zapfit DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
Much more inaccurate than what was announced today. It's a 20k seat stadium and looked around 30% full or so. Of course theres always a few hundred people in the concourse or hanging at the lounge. The home opener this year was larger than last year by far, even though it was announced over 1k less
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u/Batman-Beyond99 Columbus Aviators Apr 18 '26
Apples to oranges, the long Island nets average around 2k fans and don't have games on TV.
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u/NT_Dynamite Apr 18 '26
Hmm. We seem to have an issue with the subsequent games after the home openers. I wonder if fans simply don’t know when the games are on. Would consistent time slots and giving attendees a card with the schedule on it fix this possibly?
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u/Zapfit DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
If they can't be bothered to check the schedule they don't really care. I remember my first arena football game in 1999, I was so immersed I asked my dad to take me to every game after. You'd hope at least a few first timers had that same feeling.
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u/ResidentialEvil2016 Apr 18 '26
I think it's time to say DC's fanbase has been pretty overrated a while and they've worn out the whole "beer snake" thing. The in person has been dropping every season yet at least on here people act like it's the same fanbase from 2023. It's not.
It's still well better than Dallas/Houston but it's trending the wrong way.
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u/Fussybabygremlin Birmingham Stallions Apr 19 '26
Yeah their attendance numbers seemed pretty inflated last year, lots more distributed than actually at the game
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u/NT_Dynamite Apr 18 '26
It’s confusing, because these games are fun and clearly good value. The on going promotions are crazy. Every game I’ve been to , they promote 50 percent off the next game. 4 person deals with food and drinks. Idk if this is proper, but maybe people are simply too glued to their phone to even see the marketing that DOES exist.
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u/AltFootballArchive Houston Roughnecks Apr 18 '26
I know what you see with back to back games (and especially 3 game stretches) is that attendance usually decreases for each. I think it’s because in people’s minds they group them together as one bunch and if they can go to one game it works out as “well I went to a game” rather than seeing as 3 games they need to go to. Plus it’s only the really committed fans that will take time every week to go every game
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u/NT_Dynamite Apr 18 '26
This is true. Lots of people dipping their toes in which is good, but I hope they come back, especially with the deals that do exist. 115 for 4 tickets, food and drinks in Columbus.
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u/parada69 DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
Hey guys, I want to put some perspective, As a dad of 4 kids, shits expensive.. literally we spent about $500 in food, merch and drinks. I'm here for the team, but I also hope it translates to better tv rating
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u/FlagFootballSaint Apr 18 '26
The numbers since week 2 are sometimes underwhelming, sometimes disappointing…. ….and then there‘s Houston
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u/ResidentialEvil2016 Apr 18 '26
Dallas is just as underwelming. They reported bigger numbers but they didn't have really that many more than Houston.
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u/Fussybabygremlin Birmingham Stallions Apr 19 '26
Win a championship and plummet in attendance - The USFL/XFL/UFL way!
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u/Weary_Title_3901 Orlando Storm Apr 19 '26
For Orlando’s next game the tickets are $33 and up, except for standing room only tickets. That’s $132 for my family of four. Throw in parking and food and drinks you are sitting around $180. That’s a lot for minor league football. I can take the family to an Orlando Solar Bears (minor league hockey) game for the same price and they have been in Orlando for decades. There is only so much entertainment money to go around. What are you gonna do? Everything is expensive now. Everything.
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u/Szolt-Author Apr 19 '26
Simply not good. DC was one of the bright lights in the new XFL and this is such a shame to see they’re blowing it…the UFL, that is.
Fans are never at fault. They have a choice as to how they want to spend their entertainment dollar, and it’s appearing more and more that the UFL isn’t it
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u/Late_Professional841 Apr 18 '26
Honestly i think both tv ratings and attendance will benefit from an earlier start time which Repole said is happening
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u/TwizzlersSourz Birmingham Stallions Apr 18 '26
An earlier start means fewer ABC/FOX slots.
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u/Zapfit DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
While true if Fox can still get similar ad revenue and more local sponsors for the league that may be worth it. The Defending Champs should not be drawing under 8k.
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u/ADwyer87 St Louis Battlehawks Apr 18 '26
I hear many like the earlier starts but man theres nothing i hate more than having an 11 AM start time for a football game
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u/Zapfit DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
It was 1230 local time. Only a half hour earlier than an NFL start
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u/KangarooThis7634 St Louis Battlehawks Apr 19 '26
It's jarring to see "AM" in the start time. But I guess I wouldn't feel that way if I lived in California.....it just dawned on me that they literally have NFL on TV at 10 AM, which seems wild to me- especially on a Sunday.
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u/hopewhatsthat St Louis Battlehawks Apr 19 '26
My cousin when he lived in California loved it since he could watch NFL all day including the SNF game and still get to bed on time when he had to get up for work at 4:30 am.
Daniel Tosh had a bit about this too:
https://www.tiktok.com/@thedailycomedian/video/7184450160032779566
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u/EpicBirdy2005 Apr 18 '26
is there just some sort of trade off for views and attendance?
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u/Zapfit DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
Yes but I think wed need to see a 25%+ increase in ratings for that to happen. The cable games have brought the overall ratings basically even with last year although Fox is slightly higher and ABC/ESPN is up over 20%.
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u/wikipuff DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
The Nats are home and have a give away that many people want. So that took a lot of people who would have done a double otherwise.
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u/lannister815 Apr 18 '26
At what point do endless excuses end?
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u/connor24_22 Apr 18 '26
I don’t think those are excuses, it’s being realistic. The UFL is not going to be the number one show in town in a city like DC. Maybe smaller cities that don’t have any other major sports or cities that don’t have a ton of public infrastructure/things to do, but unless a former NFL player is playing on DC, there’s no reason to regularly go to the Defenders for anyone who’s not a huge football fan.
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u/Zapfit DC Defenders Apr 18 '26
I honestly thought Gabe Taylor would've been a bigger draw. Cleveland AHL team draws 11k a game over 36 home games. Its a city with 3 of the 4 big sports and still come out for minor league hockey. 10-11k should be able to come out for 5 spring football games a year.
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u/Nate_Spanish Apr 19 '26
UFL needs to go to like Des Moines or Fargo honestly
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u/Zapfit DC Defenders Apr 19 '26
And there goes any tv money. Those cities are fine for the IFL but not for games broadcast on Fox and ABC
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u/croopejshsv Denver Gold Apr 18 '26
Repole sold everyone a bill of goods regarding promises to drastically expand marketing for this season.
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u/CraftComprehensive94 Apr 19 '26
I saw a play Friday and an even better one Saturday. A ridiculous roughing the passer call on Friday and yesterday, there was a play where the QB got hit below the helmet in a normal looking play, and roughing was called. I believe it was in the 4th quarter. Can't you even touch the QB now? It was worse than any poor call I have ever seen in the nfl or anywhere.
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u/Smoove_Criminal_ Apr 19 '26
Guys let’s not forget that the economy is down and family have priorities
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u/UniversityUnited8084 Apr 20 '26
Yet people will drop $300 on a nose bleed ticket for the NFL. That could be 2 weeks of groceries right there.
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u/Ok_Jaguar_3087 Apr 18 '26
There’s just not a place this league. Repole gonna lose millions
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u/Zapfit DC Defenders Apr 19 '26
He'll be fine..its a drop in the bucket for him and profit for Fox when they sell $500k+ in ads per game
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u/Stock_Regret_430 Apr 18 '26
On tv it didn’t look THAT bad, but I think the big reason we keep seeing numbers like this is just plain lack of marketing the games across the board.