At least in the F.C. area. The Washington Post has some interesting data that show more people watch D.C. United games on television that watch the Washington Nationals baseball team.
From the post:
Nielsen Media Research numbers, the Nats are drawing an average rating of 0.39 in the Washington Designated Market Area, which consists of approximately 2.3 million households. A 0.39 rating corresponds to about 9,000 households.
For one comparison–with a sport whose season begins and ends at virtually the same time–D.C. United is thus far drawing a 0.5 rating for its eight regular-season MLS games that have been shown live on Comcast SportsNet. That doesn’t count the taped replays CSN shows, nor does it account for D.C. United games on any of the ESPN/ABC family of stations. The 0.5 rating corresponds to approximately 11,500 local households.
Which means that, at the season’s midway point for both franchises, D.C. United is outdrawing the Nats on TV.
Dan Steinberg the Post columnist also pointed out that more people are looking for, and reading, soccer information on the WashingtonPost.com web site than are looking for baseball information. After spending over $600 million on the construction of the Nationals ball park I wonder what D.C. politicians think about the fact that more people are watching the local MLS team than the local MLB team?
