NBA All Star Game Ratings Reach A Record Low (For Real This Time)
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Now with less 2004 Stats! I somehow managed to post a report from 2004 the other day that the NBA ASG tied a record low. If you missed it...well then good, but in the end it was actually worse than 2004....it got the worst ratings ever.
According to the numbers I posted on Monday, the low for the game was back in 2001 with NBC drawing a 5.1 national household rating. Well what was this past Sunday's number you ask?
4.5
Not only is that the lowest it's ever been but it's down 11.8% from last year, AND it's gone down every single year that TNT has carried the game. Here are the numbers from the past 6 years....
'08 New Orleans- 4.5/6,334,000
'07 Las Vegas- 5.1/6,843,000
'06 Houston- 5.2/7,070,000
'05 Denver- 6.0/8,082,000
'04 Los Angeles- 6.2/8,190,000
'03 Atlanta- 8.2/10,829,000
Wow that's bad, but get this. Via Bob Wolfley in Milwaukee...
On Feb. 10, the National Football League's Pro Bowl on WITI-TV (Channel 6) had an audience almost 2½ times the size of the NBA game. The Pro Bowl had a rating of 10.7, or 95,337 households.Cable is obviously not a good place for an All Star Game to reside. It could have been that it ended near midnight on a Sunday, or that Kobe wasn't playing, but for some reason people just don't tune into the game on TNT. With the Finals ratings in the 6's last year it might not be a bad idea for Stern to look for expansion opportunities in Europe.
Even adding the audience for both of those games together does not match the audience for major-league baseball's 2007 All-Star Game on Channel 6. The rating for that contest was 16.1, or 142,163 households.
Area dims out NBA stars (JS Online)
Weekend Tube Review: Daytona 500 > All-Star Game (The Sporting Blog)
(Numbers via Sports Business Daily)
11 Comments:
I think it should be pointed out that a 5.1 on cable would be stellar for almost any sporting event -- much less the NBA All Star Game.
That being said, the rating for this year's game -- as far as I know -- has not been released yet, and figures to be in the 4.0-4.5 range.
We've been beaten by..."A Connie Chung Christmas."
/still not funny
I turned on the All-Star game on all the TVs in my house (4 of them). Do you think that helped them?
Those goddamned white people again!!!
Well what do you expect? They went head-to-head against the damn Gladiators finale!!!
That being said, the rating for this year's game -- as far as I know -- has not been released yet, and figures to be in the 4.0-4.5 range.
Which would put it, for comparison's sake, somewhere around what TBS was getting for the NLCS, right? Not too shabby, it would seem.
actually, looks like it would just about blow the NLCS out of the water.
But hasn't the value of a rating point gone up in 10 years? They're still a bunch of people watching...there's just more TVs out there.
Losing 2 million viewers in 5 years has to get someones attention at the NBA offices.
For any statistical or comparisions to be made from year to year, one should discount 2003, since that was Jordan's last All-Star Game, thus, a significantly higher rating.
Im shocked! How did this happen. I thought everybody thought the whole All-Star break was awesome.
I think the NFL is on to something by bundling the ugly sister (Pro Bowl) with the attractive one (Super Bowl). I just don't know how effective it could be with the other sports because they're not a week apart like they are in the NFL.
Granted, they got it from the Bible when Jacob married Leah before he could marry Rachel (Genesis 29, look it up), but you can't argue with a system that works.