National Crisis: Nats Drawing MLB's Smallest Regional TV Ratings

Nationals Drawing Smallest Regional TV Ratings In MLB

The Nationals are drawing the "smallest U.S. regional television audience in [MLB] this season, attracting less than one-third the average number of households of any other team," according to a SportsBusiness Journal report cited by Dan Steinberg of the WASHINGTON POST. Nationals games on MASN and MASN2 are earning a 0.39 average area rating and about 9,000 HHs in the DC market, down about 43% from the '07 season and a "significantly lower [RSN] audience than any other U.S. team has drawn this season." The figures do not include potential MASN viewers outside the DC market. The Nationals this season have been "beset by a string of injuries to their best-known players, and have the worst record" in MLB, and MASN spokesperson Todd Webster cited the injuries and "short history in [DC] as contributing to the low" TV ratings. Webster: "The team is still relatively new. It is still building." Webster added that he "doesn't believe the fact that all Nationals games are not on the same channel hurts the team's ratings." LHB Sports, Entertainment & Media President & CEO Lee Berke: "If things turn around next year (for the Nationals), you'll find ratings on the mend. It doesn't strike me as unbelievably low given the situation the Nationals are in, which is a start-up team in a town that has a lot of divided loyalties. Things do turn around." The Nationals referred all questions on the matter to MASN. Steinberg noted the Orioles, who are the majority shareholders in the net, "are drawing higher ratings in the Washington market than are Nationals broadcasts" on both MASN and MASN2 (WASHINGTON POST, 7/8).

ALARMING NUMBERS: In DC, Thomas Boswell writes the 0.39 rating "got reactions from skepticism to shock to concern" from the Nationals up to MLB Commissioner Bud Selig. Selig said of the rating, "I'm a little startled. It's certainly unusual. I'll dig into it." Nationals President Stan Kasten said of the low ratings, "We don't run MASN. TV ratings used to be my life (with the CNN-owned Braves). Now I pay no attention to it. It's entirely [the Orioles'] deal. The Nationals just get a check." Boswell writes, "How can a team draw 30,000 breathing humans but repel almost every potential TV viewer? Could the combination of a wonderful new park, coupled with an awful (injured) team really produce such a ratio?" Orioles Owner Peter Angelos pays the Nationals about $25M annually for the TV rights, and Boswell wonders if Angelos is getting the "short end of what was originally considered a sweetheart deal." Meanwhile, the Orioles themselves are "third-to-last in number of TV households reached," and Boswell asks, "What part of the problem lies with MASN itself?" (WASHINGTON POST, 7/9). Also in DC, Dan Steinberg wrote, "I've been told not to make public our own numbers on Nats-based Web hits, but I think 'disappointing' would be an accurate description." Steinberg: "What the heck is going on here? Why do we have a baseball team? Is this just yet another example of Washingtonians being front-runners? Will the numbers spike when the Nats start winning?" (WASHINGTONPOST.com, 7/7).

Writer Feels On-Field Product Could Be Reason For Such Low TV Ratings

OTHER POSSIBLE REASONS: The POST's Fisher wrote MASN "stinks," as the net has "treated the Nats as the ugly stepchild from the get go. To this day, the [Orioles'] casts get the fancy graphics; the Nats' don't. The O's casts get the cool pitch-tracking technology; the Nats' don't. The O's have normal camera angles; the Nats' casts have a bizarre overhead shot of home plate." Also, MASN is "hard to find" on the cable dial, the "rest of the media in town has failed to embrace baseball's return" and MASN and the Nationals "have failed to do enough to educate those who don't know the sport" (WASHINGTONPOST.com, 7/8).

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