Today, a report at SportsBusinessJournal shows TV ratings for the 30 clubs. Despite a 46% increase in viewership on CSN California, the A’s have placed last in both ratings (1.23) and viewers (30,792 households). Ratingswise the A’s are actually tied for last with the Angels, but the Angels’ much larger SoCal market nets more than double the eyeballs.
You’ll remember that 2009 was the first season on the new CSN California network, and as expected it encountered growing pains. Many non-Comcast cable systems didn’t carry the network at first, and there’s always that adjustment period for fans as they grow comfortable with the new channel.
Interestingly, the A’s rating at the beginning of the season was 1.6, though that was a small and not properly representative sample. As the A’s continue to improve on the field, the ratings recovery should also continue, perhaps even approaching a 2.0 rating, or roughly 50,000 households. Both the A’s and CSN have to be encouraged by the increase, as the audience should only get stronger over time. The eyebrow-raiser is the Washington Nationals, who have finally emerged from their malaise over the past few years with an initially competitive team and a must-see horse in Stephen Strasburg.
Perhaps even more important is the size of the market. Plenty of small and mid market teams have to perform quite well to get 30,000+ households, which speaks to the Bay Area’s importance. If they were ever to move out of the Bay Area, maxing out in a small market could prove more difficult there than here. Add to that the Bay Area’s affluence, and even in second place it’s a difficult combination to beat.
newballpark.org 
So a move to SJ would triple the ratings over night?
The DC/Balt numbers are sad. 2 great parks don’t mean high TV ratings.
Phillie’s pretty high, Cubs not so high.
@jk-usa – Do you really have to turn everything into Oakland vs. San Jose? This is about the region, get that through your thick skull.
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# of ratings points needed to reach 30K households:
New York Yankees 0.40
New York Mets 0.40
Los Angeles Angels 0.53
Los Angeles Dodgers 0.53
Chicago White Sox 0.86
Chicago Cubs 0.86
Philadelphia Phillies 1.02
Texas Rangers 1.18
Oakland A’s 1.20
San Francisco Giants 1.20
Boston Red Sox 1.24
Atlanta Braves* 1.26
Washington Nationals 1.28
Houston Astros 1.41
Detroit Tigers 1.59
Arizona Diamondbacks 1.60
Seattle Mariners 1.64
Tampa Bay Rays 1.66
Minnesota Twins 1.73
Colorado Rockies 1.95
Florida Marlins 1.95
Cleveland Indians 1.97
St. Louis Cardinals 2.40
Pittsburgh Pirates 2.60
Baltimore Orioles 2.74
San Diego Padres 2.79
Kansas City Royals 3.19
Cincinnati Reds 3.27
Milwaukee Brewers 3.33
@ML–here we go again with your unprofessionalism.
Back on July 9th, you called me a “judgmental prick” over a tame observation I made (it’s okay, no apology needed) and now I have a “thick skull” for bringing up Oak vs SJ again.
All the Oakland bashing by others is fine with you, but if I dare bring up a harmless Oak Vs. SJ post, I get jumped on. Your bias is showing. Call it the SJ A’s Baseball Stadium site. It fits.
It’s okay if you boot me this time, I will understand.
It’s true that everything is Oakland vs Sj with you jk….enough already. it’s beyond old… Sheesh, Nav 2.0
@jk-usa… where is it stated anywhere that a move to sj would triple television viewers?
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@Larry E – Yeah, you called that one a few weeks ago.
@jk-usa – Nah. I have a ton of patience. Keep hijacking threads with your agenda, and things will add up.
I like the ultra mo
@LarryE.–hey don’t knock my buddy Nav. He’s awesome on SFGate.
@jefferey–we’ll never know if they would because they’re staying in Oakland (i hope)!
@ML–I’m still here? A miracle!!
I did a little research and got some Shark/Warrior figs for comparison. Sharks TV around 28k, and Warriors around 34k, but both down like 20% from previous year.
If I recall right, during the A’s bash bros. years, their rating were even with the Giants, but have been blown away ever since. The A’s have overall had such better more colorful teams than SF.I forgot about the Bonds thing there for a few years ARGHHH!!
Wow. New York has a combined viewership of 571,757! Seriously, why is there not another team in NY? Heck, you could stick 2 more teams in there and there would theoretically (as it would take a while for a team to build up viewers) be 142,939 viewers for each team (and only the Phillies and Red Sox would have more viewers).
And LA is disappointing, combined it is only 161,852 viewers. That’s less than the Phillies, Mets, or Yankees alone.
gojohn– Interesting scale, where would Portland, Charlotte and Las Vegas fit? Below Milwaukee?
@Ezra NY says thank heavens for territorial rights that would prohibit such a move.
@Baycommuter – I just took the numbers from the table below, divided households by the rating, and then sorted the results. The Sports Business Journal analyzed Neilsen ratings, but I’m not sure if those are publicly available. Even if not the answer is likely that the # of households is roughly proportional to population density in the region.
@jk-usa, don’t count yer chickens… but seriously, I find it humorous that you call marine layer biased in light of your comments that turn everything into o v. sj. I know for a fact that he would be 100% okay with the A’s playing in Oakland from now until the end of time provided a new stadium was built and that he would be 100% okay if the A’s never played in San Jose if public general fund monies were being considered as a way to pay for a new stadium. This is the thing that annoys me most about Oakland Only (and San Jose Only) posturing: You, and folks like Navigator, take very complex issues with a lot of moving parts and try to boil it down to simple emotional arguments. That’s fine by me and ML, just don’t be surprised when you get called on it.
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ML’s objectivity gets a bum rap from Oakland Only types. Especially considering the post just before this one is about how minor league affiliates could be a sticking point (which city would be ass out if that were the case again?). There are hundreds of posts on this site detailing everything from potential sites in Oakland (at a time when Oakland wasn’t even stating publicly which sites they thought might work) to minor league stadiums in Omaha.
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You bring up a good point… Historical TV ratings A’s v. Giants… I am of the opinion (at least I remember it this way) that when the A’s were outdrawing the Giants at the park, they were losing to them in the TV Ratings. I can’t remember why I thought this to be the case and I don’t have time to look it up right now, but maybe someone else has actual numbers tucked away?
@baycommuter, Milwaukee is the 35th largest TV market in the country. Las Vegas is 42nd, Portland is 22nd, Charlotte is 24th, and for good measure Sacramento is 20th.
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From the table above… St. Louis is a good comparable to Sacramento and Portland because it is 21st. Pittsburgh is a good comparable to Charlotte (and maybe Portland too), it is 23rd. Milwaukee is the closest MLB city in relation to Las Vegas, and it is much bigger.
Jeffrey, you beat me to it. However, I will add that I compared the # of households and the population density of the metro area and got a correlation coefficient of 0.98. So, not surprisingly, population size of the metro area is a great predictor of the number households available for viewing ballgames.
thanks, gojohn and jeffrey. there isn’t anything all that attractive out there.
Here’s a good table showing the number of households per market. The list below includes the number of ratings points needed to hit 30k households.
Also, for anyone wondering what the ratings were like for the A’s during the 2002 season – 1.6.
@jeffrey–I recall hearing Radnich talking about it a few years ago about the A’s glory years of the late 80’s barely getting the same ratings as the Gnats.
@jk-usa, I heard Barbieri say that a long time ago about the Bash brother teams. The Giants play in a very popular city, I can see why the Giants and Niners have more fans than the A’s and Raiders. It doesn’t matter though, the Angels as the ratings show are in the same boat but they still do what they need to do and draw well and have money to spend. In a large market if you market your product right it’s all good .
Yes but the Giants had good teams during the Bash Brothers years too. They even played in the World Series against who else……the A’s. When you have a 2 team market, one team will always be more popular than the other team.
The Giants and Dodgers have first-mover advantages that have never been erased. That (and success) are why putting a third team in metro NYC wouldn’t necessarily hurt the Yankees much.
@Dennis H, good point the Giants were good then too.
A new ballpark in either Oakland or San Jose would increase the A’s TV rating 10 fold. Right now fans are disenchanted by the old ballpark and the fact the team doesn’t keep marquee players due to market limitations.
When was the last big free agent signing for the A’s with a marquee player? Eric Chavez, who has been hurt a majority of his contract and he comes of the books this year finally.
The Giants have always been a good draw on TV as they had better partners on the TV and of course the radio side with KTVU and KNBR over the years. While the A’s used KICU and a ton of different radio stations that never caught on because of numerous name changes and corporate takeovers.
Now the Giants own CSN Bay Area and the A’s seeing this bounced to CSN California as they were getting bitched for time slots all day long with the Sharks and Giants. But CSN California isn’t offered everywhere and people are just beginning to see the channel being available on basic cable. Hence the 46.4 percent increase from the year before.
The A’s dominated at the gate over the Giants for years only because their stadium was far better than what the Giants used to play in. Not to mention the A’s were a whole lot better in the standings with marquee players across the board. Walter Haas lost 20 million year in the late 1980s and early 1990s keeping the team competitive.
But he had his best years attendance wise and the Giants hated it to the point of trying to move to San Jose back at that time. Who would have thought the Giants would stick it to the A’s for giving them the rights to San Jose? Wally Haas must be rolling over in his grave.
@Sid: at first your comment “new ballpark increases TV rating 10 fold” did not make sense to me: why would people sitting on their couch care about how old the Coliseum is ?
but then I got it: that because with a new stadium the owners will have increased revenue and you actually believe that some of that extra revenue would really go towards better players ? First: the extra revenue has to be offset by the millions of revenue sharing that the A’s currently receive from MLB. Second: there is ample statistics (hey we are talking baseball 😉 that the win/loss records of teams after they get a new stadium only increases by a few games. We can all hope … but the facts are not promising.
Are we sure Haas didn’t ask for SJ back as a way to keep the A’s from moving to the South bay in the future? Maybe instead of rolling in his grave, he’s patting himself on his back… in his grave.
@gojohn10 – There isn’t anything to support that. Either he was being magnanimous towards the Giants, or he wanted better unfettered access to SF, or both.