Raps season opener gets terrible ratings (54,000 viewers)

[Weems]

I've been on a silent, trivial boycott since the Gay trade and it's been extremely hard not to give in.

54,000 is absolutely unbelievable. Wow.

[GP2]

54,000!?

That's horrendous.

[lacokanostra]

I'm guessing more people illegally streamed it versus watched on TSN 2.

[RaptorNews]

Shockingly bad, but how can you blame fans with a team this terrible?

[Valanciunuts]

Things to consider:

- On TSN2
- Playing against the Celtics (a team that is tanking)
- Bargnani fans are gone (lol)
- Many fans want to tank (only basing this off realgm)
- This team can be boring to watch (ISO, ISO, ISO, and tons of fouls)

[Wo1verine]

Looks good on them! Maybe they can rebuild properly and make this team a consistent playoff squad by not taking short cuts all the damn time.

[ThemCrookedRefs]

Didn't expect big numbers because of the WS and the Leafs, but 54,000?!? That's shockingly low. It doesn't help that it's on TSN2, but that doesn't explain everything. I wonder how many people stream the games? If they want those numbers to go up, then they have to start winning and giving more consistent coverage to the sport on TV (especially the highlight shows). It's hard to attract new fans or keep the casual fan interested if they have to seek things out for themselves.

[artsncrafts]

We are really not a fun team to watch, even the wins are so ugly (Celtics), I streamed both games though, cost 50$ a month more to get TSN2 and SN1(have to get 2 packages i believe), I am a university student, sorry Rogers(not actually because you are con artists)

[Secueritae]

i bet more people streamed it than watched it on those special networks ...these channels are a joke showing curling wrestling and poker all the time

It's still real to me dammit!!

[Waylon Mercy]

It's time to bring Vince Carter back just to get people talking/watching again

[AbC?]

As Raps fans we're used to crappy basketball but for some reason I find this current team just incredibly boring to watch. Tried to sit through first two games this season, stopped about half way through. Now imagine the casual fan tuning in to watch, not surprised by the viewership numbers.

[Inevitable]

I have all the channels to watch Raptors games, but WTF is up with me needing to upgrade to watch games HD on TSN2. Smh the quality was as bad as the on court product.

[Young_Buc]

The raptor fan demographic (young urban crowd) doesn't jive with the tsn 2 ( old, willing to pay for silly channels) demographic.

Pretty much to be expected. If you were to look at numbers from this board, id say over 50 percent of the board watched the game online whether illegally or otherwise


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums mobile app

[lacokanostra]

This says more about Canadian Media as opposed to Raptors fans in Canada. Also, that number should be far higher if MLSE could at least produce an average product…

[gambler10]

unlike the leafs the raps cannot put crap on the court and have great ratings which is good news because rogers and bell cannot afford these type of ratings. This will force management to turn this thing around, I feel a tank coming. Who wants to bet the 1st Kansas game on TSN2 gets more than 54k viewers? TSN is setting up this tank oh so well.

[lacokanostra]

How many viewers are those Two and a Half Men re-runs getting on CTV?

[TheGoodDoctor]

This is Canada's team!

[Schad]

IMO, these dismal ratings are Colangelo's legacy and the primary reason he was fired.

Over his tenure, Bryan talked a good game, but did nothing to build the Raptors brand in Toronto or across Canada. His team's were mediocre and there was nothing to make casual fans say 'I need to check out the Raptors'.

I went to the home opener with my son. The next day I asked him if he talked to anyone at high school about the Raps v Celtics game. His answer was 'no - no one cares about the Raptors.' Even my son, (who is a 6'2" starting small forward on his high school team) is more interested in the NHL than he is in the Raptors.

So after 19 seasons, the Raptors brand is pretty much irrelevant. Masai and Leiweke have their work cut out for them.

Mentioned it before, but the young people are the biggest problem that this team will face. A lot of people here fall into two categories: those who became fans when the team first came into existence (and are in the 30s or older) and those who were teens or pre-teens when the Carter era dawned (and are in their mid/late 20s) and became NBA fans and Raptors fans more or less simultaneously.

The majority from both of those groups are now lifers...we'll have the odd Raptors-related existential crisis, but won't break away to support another team. The next generation down, though, haven't been given any reason to consider themselves Raptors fans, much less committed ones. Even our brief ups during the Bosh era aren't the sort likely to cause thousands of kids to ride out the bad, and with it sometimes being easier to find games televised nationally in the States than Raptors contests, a great deal more likely have decided that they are fans of the Heat, or Thunder, or Bulls.

We need something big, something that causes all of those casual observers to care about the team in the short-term, but makes Raptors fanhood a point of pride even once the success recedes. We need, essentially, a rallying point, and for that we need to be really good, and do something really memorable. Marginal internal improvement and dunk contest wins ain't gonna do it.

[Kabookalu]

Regardless of the product on the floor, that doesn't justify how depressingly bad those ratings are. I live in Cali so I don't know the situation there but it has to do with something outside of basketball.

[martypython]

What do you expect? It was the same night as the World Series where the Red Sox won it all, much like how the Idiots of 04 broke the curse.