The Lakers' ratings on Time Warner Cable SportsNet are down 37.5% over the team's first 40 games compared to last season.
Lakers games averaged a 2.72 rating over those games, down from a 4.35 last season, TWC's first as the team's broadcast partner.
"I wouldn't be overly concerned about it, but I certainly would keep an eye on it," said David Carter, executive director of the USC Sports Business Institute. "That kind of precipitous drop, if it becomes something where they have that drop and then they never recover from it, that's certainly a real problem."
"Although the TWC ratings are down, we know that Lakers fans continue to have an appetite for Lakers programming, be it live games, classic games or original programming," Lakers spokesman John Black said. "We've seen similar ratings patterns in past Lakers seasons, and while we do see a dip this season, my understanding is that we're still outperforming the marketplace.
"We all know that we can't be championship contenders every year, but there is still an enormous base of Lakers fans who are following this team."
The Lakers' struggles have resulted in the team's first non-sellout at Staples Center since December 2006 and prompted ESPN and TNT, in consultation with the NBA, to each drop a Lakers game they had planned to nationally televise earlier this month.
"We've always felt like the Lakers had tremendous goodwill and the equity in the bank that continues to draw the fans in season in, season out, win or lose," said Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon, "so it's interesting where this year everything has seemingly gone wrong how much of an eyeball exodus there has been from the TV product."
TWC executives obviously were hoping for higher ratings when they agreed to a 25-year, $5-billion deal with the Lakers that has made the team the envy of small-market competitors. Forbes recently reported that the Lakers' $122-million take last season from TWC represented more than 20 times what the Charlotte Bobcats and Milwaukee Bucks received from their broadcast partners.
It's been even obvious here on our Lakers board... Our game threads only make like 5 pages at most now
. You guys really think management will have a choice this off-season and not making any significant roster moves? In reality they may not have a choice but that'll be a tough pill to swallow for everyone. (TWC and Lakers fan). Gotta believe somewhere Fox Sports West is laughing at Time Warner cable. Kobe being out obviously had a big part in this number. Also surprising how low the Clippers #'s are.
