My 76ers

Ball Don't Lie

Philadelphia's 'embarrassing' TV viewership could barely fill 76ers' stadium

 

By Ben RohrbachJuly 22, 2015 6:09 PMBall Don't Lie

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CLEVELAND, OH - MARCH 29: Nerlens Noel #4 and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute #12 of the Philadelphia 76ers react after being defeated by the Cleveland Cavaliers at Quicken Loans Arena on March 29, 2015 in Cleveland, Ohio. The Cavaliers defeated the 76ers 87-86. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Jason Miller/Getty Images)

Almost everything about the Philadelphia 76ers has been embarrassing over the past two seasons, so why shouldn’t the TV ratings fall under that umbrella, too?

According to a recent Inquirer report, the Sixers averaged only 23,000 viewers during their miserable 18-win season in 2014-15. Keep in mind Philadelphia is the nation’s fourth-largest market with roughly 2.96 million homes featuring TV sets.

“Those numbers are embarrassing,” former CBS Sports president turned media consultant Neal Pilson told the Inquirer’s Bob Fernandez, “no question about it.” 

As 76ers blog Liberty Ballers noted, the team could barely fill Wells Fargo Stadium’s 21,600-seat capacity with its TV viewership, which would explain why Philadelphia ranked dead last in NBA attendance with an average of 13,940 tickets sold per game. And the team’s new uniforms came across as a veiled attempt to boost jersey sales.

At the height of their powers this century, when the 76ers reached the 2001 NBA Finals during Allen Iverson’s MVP campaign, the team averaged a 3.6 rating — meaning 3.6 percent of televisions in Philadelphia were tuned to the Sixers. That rating dipped to 0.68 in 2014-15, down 72 percent from just four years ago, despite a league-wide 4 percent increase in regional sports network viewership this year.

Only the Brooklyn Nets posted lower TV ratings this past season (0.55), but since they play in a bigger market, their viewership remained twice as large. The Chicago Bulls led the NBA with an average of 163,000 viewers. A handful of teams drew fewer viewers than the 76ers — a group led by the New Orleans Pelicans (11,000) — but those franchises play in smaller markets and less basketball-crazed cities. 

Search Ball Don’t Lie’s archives, and you can learn all about the Sixers’ tanking efforts these past couple seasons. GM Sam Hinkie has all but admitted as much, trading almost every NBA-caliber player on his roster in hopes of landing high draft picks, and then using said picks on injured prospects and players stashed overseas.

The ratings reflect an embarrassing product on the court, and while Nerlens Noel, Joel Embiid orJahlil Okafor may blossom into the kind of franchise cornerstone that turns the ship around, even the most famous of 76ers, Julius “Dr. J” Erving, admitted the team is “seven years” from being “formidable.” It’s a wonder the Minnesota Timberwolves and New York Knicks finished with a worse record in 2014-15.

The Sixers believe television ratings will rebound once the franchise does, as CEO Scott O’Neil told the Inquirer, “You can go look at the Iverson years or the (Charles) Barkley years. The market comes back. We just have to do our job.”

But for the time being the 76ers have little reason to increase viewership. No longer owned by Comcast, whose CSN Philadelphia station has the rights to Sixers games, the ownership group is locked into a relatively cheap TV deal that brings in only an estimated $12 million annually through 2029. By comparison, the Lakers now earn a league-high $122 million annually for the rights to broadcast their games regionally.

What the Sixers lose in ticket and merchandise sales and local TV ratings — the only avenues fans really have to voice their frustration with the team’s approach — the franchise will attempt to offset with a league-minimum salary and the NBA’s $24 billion national TV broadcast partnership, which begins with the 2016-17 campaign. 

So, as the 76ers enter Year 3 of their unprecedented tanking plan, the city’s diehard basketball fans suffer the most in this scenario, which is decidedly frustrating.