Brooklyn, Winning help YES ratings

The Nets final year in New Jersey was a ratings disaster. For the third straight year, the Nets were dead last in local TV ratings, with a .41 rating meaning less than half of one percent of all households --about 30,000-- in the New York area tuned into an average Nets game. The year before, it was actually worse with a .29!

Now, with a winning team in Brooklyn, with the hype and the buzz, the ratings are continuing to improve. The Nets have increased their rating by 150 percent, up to a 1.00 rating, meaning one percent of all households, a little less than 75,000 households are watching. Thirteen times the number has exceeded the 1.0, most recently the 1.4 delivered vs the Thunder on Wednesday night.

However, it should be noted that even a 1.0 rating for the season would not get the Nets out of the bottom five of local TV ratings. Last season, the Wizards finished with a .88 rating for 28th among NBA teams. (Still, because of the New York market's size, It's entirely possible that more people watched the game on YES in New York, about 100,000 households, than watched in OKC where the average audience is around 50,000.)

Last season, only one Nets telecast (out of 64) did at least a 1.0 rating on YES. During the previous season, none of YES’ Nets telecasts did a 1.0 rating or better during the entire season. The Nets-Heat game on December 3 was the most-watched and highest-rated regular season Nets telecast ever on YES with a 2.15 average rating, meaning 158,000 viewers.

• YES Nets 150% Ratings Jump with Brooklyn Ball - Mike Reynolds - Multi-Channel News