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The clubs also are neck-and-neck as they vie for having the league’s best local-market television ratings, but it’s strictly no contest in terms of attendance. The Battlehawks are dominating the entire UFL in drawing crowds, outpacing their nearest competitor by more than a 2-1 rate.

That’s nothing new, as ºüÀêÊÓƵ lapped the rest of the league in attendance in its two incarnations in the XFL — which over the winter merged with the United States Football League to form the UFL and former a single spring pro football league.

According to unofficial figures, the Battlehawks have drawn an average of 36,037 fans to their two home contests, with No. 3 set for 2 p.m. Saturday against Houston and another 30,000-plus crowd expected. Washington (D.C.) is next, at 15,052. Birmingham, the league’s only 5-0 team at the halfway point of the UFL’s regular-season schedule, is at 9,764.

How dominant is ºüÀêÊÓƵ at the turnstiles?

• The B-Hawks’ two home games account for 28% of the attendance for the league’s 20 games to date.

• Their home opener drew 40,317, a record for a post-2000 spring football game and the Battlehawks followed with 31,757 for their second home contest. The biggest UFL crowd for a game outside ºüÀêÊÓƵ is 16,058, which DC had last weekend when it entertained the B-Hawks.

• The 31,757 fans the Battlehawks had for their second home contest is more than two teams have drawn combined for three games — Houston (22,621) and Michigan (23,871). And Arlington’s 32,847 aggregate figure for its three home games (32,847) barely surpasses the lowest Battlehawks crowd.

• The league’s average attendance is 12,734. But remove the Battlehawks’ two home contests and it dips to 10,145.

UFL executive vice president of football operations Daryl "Moose" Johnston, a former Dallas Cowboys fullback and longtime Fox Sports NFL commentator, said the league is not happy with attendance.

“That’s the biggest challenge so far in season one,â€� he told the Post-Dispatch on Thursday, adding that “ºüÀêÊÓƵ isn’t even where we want it to be.â€�

That’s not a knock on the Gateway City, just him thinking that even bigger crowds could be attracted under better circumstances. For instance, the Battlehawks will be at home Saturday at the same time the Cardinals are playing across downtown against the Chicago White Sox with an Adam Wainwright bobblehead giveaway planned. And on May 19, the B-Hawks and Cards both are at home and will overlap for a while as they did on April 6. Other UFL teams that have been going up against well-attended events in their markets, too.

“We try to limit our competitor as much as we can,� Johnston said.

The overlap is a byproduct of timing. The creation of the league was not announced until late December, when many desirable television time slots already had been filled. That has led to some off-Broadway starting times that fit the TV schedule but aren’t attractive for trying to convince fans to attend. For instance, the Battlehawks game May 19, a Sunday, begins at 11 a.m.

In addition to having to take what was left on the TV schedule, the league had to work to fit into the existing schedule at the stadiums it is using.

“It took longer that we hoped,� to get the league together, Johnston said. “We worked through things this year, we’re looking at how we can get better.�

One of the areas to be addressed is game-day ticket sales leaguewide.

“Season ticket sales have been great but (selling) individual game tickets have struggled,� he said. “We need to be more aggressive, be ahead of the curve.�

TV time

On the television ratings front, ºüÀêÊÓƵ was the clear king among XFL markets for the local team’s games in both of its seasons.

But now the city slightly trails Birmingham, according to viewership-tracking company Nielsen. It reports that 3.1% of that market has tuned in to the Stallions’ telecasts, while the number in ºüÀêÊÓƵ for the B-Hawks is 3.0.

In the big picture, Gateway City TV viewership of the Battlehawks is down sharply. To wit:

• In 2020, the B-Hawks inaugural season that lasted only five games before being shut down by the coronavirus pandemic, their contests averaged a 6.7 rating with three games in the 8s and another at 7.4.

• They returned last year for a full 10-game schedule and averaged a 3.5 rating, with the best figure at 5.6 and only one other telecast above 4.

• So far this season, their best rating is 4.5, for their opener, and their average of 3 is OK but nothing spectacular. That’s despite four of their five outings having been on over-the-air stations, which traditionally do better than cable.

The one that was on cable was on ESPN, not exactly an unfamiliar channel to sports fans. That contest, which began at 11 a.m. last Sunday, drew a 2.7 rating locally. Last year four Battlehawks games were on FX — not a normal stop on the sports-TV menu — and they averaged a 3.2 rating.

KDNL (Channel 30) general manager Tom Tipton, whose station has aired three Battlehawks games this season and has two remaining, points out that the old XFL schedule began in February whereas the UFL slate kicked off in late March when the weather generally is better.

“When it’s cold people stay inside� and watch TV, he said. “When it’s nice they go outside.

"I’m hoping for rain for our next game,� he cracked.

There's more. Only one Battlehawks game this season is at night, when TV viewership generally is higher than in the daytime.

“I really wish we had some prime-time games,� Tipton said, adding that the audience in the men ages 55 and over demographic for the Channel 30 games has been significantly bigger than the overall number that includes all groups.

“Clearly it still is a very strong football market.�