Topanga Jamora (Paris Bulldogs), WFL Saturday Football (NBC-TV) (Channel 4)
THE WFL LIFTS NBC TO AN EASY SATURDAY DAYTIME VICTORY
It was a convincing win for NBC as they dominated ICE and ROD thanks to 6-hour coverage from the WFL on Saturday afternoon to kickoff the newly rebooted WFL season. NBC would get 78.81 million viewers to tune into their coverage of the Women's Football League.
The first game of the special WFL Saturday Night Football doubleheader between rivals the London Invasion and Paris Bulldogs grabbed 72.16 million viewers for NBC. It was the Bulldogs home opener for the fans in Paris as they had the honor of being the first ones to host the new season and with all eyes open on them they put on a show as Topanga Jamora carried the ball for 213 yards on the ground but this thrilling contest which would be decided in overtime wasn't enough as Farah Holt led a huge comeback after being down 38-14 in the 2nd half to tying up the game and edging Paris in overtime leading a game winning drive giving London the win 44-38 against their division rivals. Farah Holt won this huge shootout against Jenna McConnell as Farah posted up 488 yards and 5 touchdowns in the air to help lead her team to victory outshining Jenna's 428 yards in the air and 3 touchdowns to open the new season. London has their home opener next Sunday as they host the Chicago Enforcers on NBC and Paris Bulldogs travel to Detroit to take on Jezebel James and the Detroit Fury for Detroit's home opener also on NBC next Sunday.
In the second game of the doubleheader between the Nashville Ladies and New Orleans Originals in a Nancy division contest we had Jenna Kelly and Olivia Ross from the Ladies travel to New Orleans to face-off against Barbara DiCreddo and Italiana Richmond. New Orleans would go on to win their home opener 17-13 as the story here was quarterback Italiana Richmond who put in the work throwing for 343 yards and 2 touchdowns to lead her team to victory.
In other action on Saturday it was a pretty weird day as most of what we see during the week didn't play out on Saturday. ICE actually struggled all day on Saturday except in certain spots and so did ROD as well.
Starting in the morning we had NBC topping ICE and ROD in a few timeslots as their soap recaps helped them at the start and that led into 24 million viewers for Team NBC's live practice which dominated the ICE and ROD children programming lineups. The talk shows were a mixed bag for NBC as G. Hannelius and new Saturday Show hosts Kelly Clarkson and Jennifer Hudson struggled but there was positive news as the King sisters were lifted by being the official pregame coverage for the WFL. We'll see how the King sisters do without the WFL lead-out next Saturday. It's possible that the lack of promotion for guests hurt G. Hannelius and The Saturday Show.
ROD edged ICE lineup as the two networks had a pretty close battle. ROD's animated lineup wasn't gaining too much traction but if we had to guess what the keepers were we would say I Love Lil' Lucy, Small Soldiers, and Barbie's Adventures might be keepers and everything else will need to improve. Things got way better for ROD though as the Kimmell siblings Tracy Kimmell and Shannon Pouliot's appearance on Nikki Shields' talker helped lift ROD's ratings to 28.60 million viewers lifting over Karlie Kloss and Santana Shields' guitar lesson program had almost 30 million viewers. A repeat of the Junior Beauty Pageant topped ICE's sports programming coverage against the WFL on NBC.
TEEN ICE NEEDS TO IMPROVE AS SAVED BY THE BELL SLIDES
ICE has some concerns as their Teen ICE lineup came in with mediocre numbers. Their combo of Tomb Raiders and G.I. Jane had decent numbers beating out Football Stories and High School Drama over on ROD. The problem was after that Saved By the Bell slid hard this week to just 15 million viewers after looking like a hit its first two weeks. The criticism of how bad the Saved By the Bell reboot has been seems to be finally taking effect in the ratings for ICE. Luckily it's not all bad for Dustin Diamond as The Adult Years in primetime and Kelly Kapowski on Friday evenings are doing way better as a repeat of Kelly Kapowski was impressive getting 20 million viewers. If Saved By the Bell doesn't improve it's possible that ICE cancels the show. Things were okay for ICE the rest of the day but they don't look like the dominate lineup we know them to be on Saturdays in daytime.
1PM BATTLE
1. The Weekend Show (NBC) - 31.24 million viewers
2. Guitar Lessons with Santana Shields (ROD) - 29.77 million viewers
3. Bella Thorne's Cold Ass Igloo (ICE) - 26.83 million viewers
Like we said before we'll see how The Weekend Show does next week without the WFL's help but Santana Shields is looking pretty good for ROD and ICE wasn't too bad with Bella Thorne but it's clear that Bella's show suffered in last place because of weaker lead-ins.
Tonight we'll have the third week of auditions from The Xtina Grimmie Hour over on NBC and Vegas Showgirls over on ICE and ROD has Saturday Night Football so it should be interesting to see who comes out on top and who comes in 2nd place.
