Pelicans TV ratings are down. Doh! Memo to Front Office! Ditch Ballys!

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We should not have to pay $20 a month to watch the Pelicans. Sometimes it does not even work Now you see the ratings. Anyone with a business brain will make a logical change.

https://www.nola.com/pelicans-are-wi...518163360.html

The New Orleans Pelicans are on track to have one of their most successful regular seasons in franchise history, but their winning ways haven’t translated to increased viewership on TV.

The Pelicans’ ratings on Bally Sports New Orleans are down 12% year-over-year, according to Sports Business Journal. That was the fifth-biggest drop among the 27 NBA teams whose linear TV ratings are measured by the Nielsen Station Index.

In the 2022-23 season, the Pelicans averaged a 2.86 household rating on Bally Sports before the All-Star break, according to numbers the team provided to The Times-Picayune. This season, the Pelicans averaged a 2.48 household rating on Bally Sports before the All-Star break.

Those ratings don’t take into account streaming numbers or viewership of games the team has chosen to broadcast over the air. The three games the Pelicans have shown on WVUE (channel 8) and other Gray stations have averaged a 6.6 household rating. Seven of the Pelicans’ 25 remaining regular-season games will be shown over the air.

By the end of the season, the Pelicans said they anticipate seeing year-over-year growth in their local TV audience.

“Although the ratings reported in Sports Business Journal were down, we see a much smaller decrease when the over-the-air games are included,” the Pelicans told The Times-Picayune in a statement. “That decrease will continue to reverse, and we expect to be at or above last year’s ratings by the end of the season.”

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This makes more sense at least.

https://cordcuttersnews.com/the-phoe...aming-service/

Earlier this summer, the first major NBA team, the Suns, cut ties with Bally Sports and is now going to make their games free over the air thanks to a partnership with Gray Television. Not only will the games be free over the air, but they will also be streamed to viewers in market on the new Suns Live streaming service. With this deal starting this month, fans of the Phoenix Suns and the WNBA Phoenix Mercury will be able to watch the games for free over the air on KTVK and KPHE. With the expansion of KPHE, the Suns will now be free to watch over the air in all three of Arizona’s TV markets.
Fans will also be able to stream the games in the market through the Suns or Mercury apps on smartphones and smart TVs. Mercury games will even stream for free in the market. If you want to watch the Suns games, you will need to pay $14.99 a month or $109.99 to stream the full season. This will only include games aired in the local market, as nationally televised on TNT, ESPN, and ABC will not be included.
This price is significantly lower than the $19.99 Bally Sports charged per month for its in-market streaming service.

Back to Nola.com article

Suns among biggest gainers

In May, the Phoenix Suns announced they were ending their partnership with Bally Sports and that they would begin showing their games over the air for free. That decision appears to have contributed heavily to the team’s explosive growth in local TV viewership.

The Suns experienced a 94% year-over-year spike in viewership of their games, according to Sports Business Journal. Only the reigning champion Denver Nuggets and the Western Conference first-place Minnesota Timberwolves outpaced the Suns in growth compared to last season.

Viewership went through the roof after Suns cut Ballys.

[JJackisangry]

Bally is just awful in general. I don’t know what they did to the app, but what started as a solid viewing experience has been tarnished by whatever spaghetti code they shoved in with updates. Awful sports provider.

[Tpstr]

Bally is just awful in general. I don’t know what they did to the app, but what started as a solid viewing experience has been tarnished by whatever spaghetti code they shoved in with updates. Awful sports provider.

True dat. Watching from just outside the broadcast zone in west Louisiana was painful last week.

[hornetsrebirth]

didn't the pelicans have great ratings for the few games they aired on a different network? Bally sucks