Tuesday, July 8, 2008

DC United pwnz the Nationals

In the capital of this great nation, a new saying is taking hold. No longer does one say, "As American as baseball and apple pie." Nope. Now one has to replace "baseball" with "soccer". The TV ratings bear it out.

Nielsen Media Research reports that, in the 2.3 million households designated to be in the DC area, DC United matches are watched by more people that Washington Nationals games. DC United draws an average 0.5 rating, while the National have averaged 0.39. Before we get all uppity that the tide has changed, United's ratings equal out to 11,500 households and the Nationals get 9000. No world changing numbers there.

Unlike the WaPo columnist who had to add an update to placate frothing Nats fans, we will just let the numbers speak for themselves. On TV, in DC, United are better watched than the local baseball team. And that's change we can believe in.

I'm ü75, and I approved this message.

4 comments:

Precious Roy said...

Jason Bergmann is the Nats staff ace. Why are even 9000 households watching?

Goat said...

Steinberg's commenters are truly enlightening. For instance, did you know that the DC MLS team is the United? I guess they're kinda like the Ohio State University.

Sarah said...

I read that in the Post this morning. Doesn't surprise me, the Nats are pretty shockingly awful. Doesn't stop me from going to games, but it certainly stops me from watching them on TV. Although I don't watch (the? really?) United on TV either.

MoonshineMike said...

Mark Fisher is also busting on the mid-atlantic sports network for bad programming. Which I can relate to - sports networks are not money machines like people think.

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/rawfisher/2008/07/why_nats_tv_is_a_dud.html