NBA TV Ratings: Bobcats and Bucks Attendance Higher Than TV Viewership

The NBA’s local TV ratings are in and some of the numbers are not pretty. As expected, some of the top teams in the league have very good ratings while the teams at the bottom are struggling mightily. Actually, struggling mightily would be an understatement. The Nets posted a rating of 0.29, so yeah — literally nobody cares about the Nets yet despite Mikhail Prokhorov’s tough talk.

Deadspin called our attention to the most alarming note from Sports Business Journal‘s ratings (which can be seen in their entirety here).  The Charlotte Bobcats averaged 15,846 fans per home game this season.  That number certainly isn’t great, but it’s not terrible as it ranks 21st in the league.  The Milwaukee Bucks averaged an attendance of 15,412, which put them at 23rd in the league.  What’s embarrassing is that both of these teams averaged less household viewership than attendance, with Milwuakee bringing in an average of 13,000 viewers and Charlotte 12,000.

Think about that for a second.  There were more people who spent the money and made the effort to go to the arena than there were who had their TV tuned into the game.  Keep in mind viewership ratings are only based on amount of television sets tuned into the game.  The amount of people actually watching the game cannot be measured.  Simply put, that means barely anyone cares.

For those who are interested, the resurgent Spurs had by far the best average rating with a 10.19.  The Lakers had the best viewership rating with 271,000 average households, but that number is of course inflated by the amount of nationally televised games they play.