Nobody Wants To Watch The Mets

In what should come as a surprise to no one, people aren't tuning in to watch the New York Mets.  In fact, the Mets television audience was slashed by nearly one third.  As cited by ESPN's Adam Rubin, the Mets saw their television ratings fall from 2.25% of households during the 2012 season to only 1.54% of households in 2013.  MetsBlog's Matt Cerrone, extrapolated those figures out to determine that only 120,000 households were tuning in on a nightly basis in 2013, compared to 190,000 the year prior.  Matt also does well to mention that much of SNY's revenue is determined on subscription fees, rendering the number of people tuning in far less important.

Also worth noting that the Mets sold only 2,135,657 tickets this season.  That's a mere 26,695 per night and finds the team fall into the bottom third of the league in attendance.  That represents 1,340 fewer tickets sold per game than in 2012.  Bear in mind that none of these measures accurately account for how few people actually made it out to Citi Field and the financial losses the team experienced as a result for things like concessions and parking.

Ultimately, whether the blame be laid at the feet of television or actually attendance, revenue is down.  Not good for a franchise that so often cites ticket sales as a driving force behind team payroll.  The Mets have fielded a poor product in recent years.  As a result, fewer fans are buying.  None of these can help in the organization's effort to restructure its debt this winter.  That too can greatly impact the team's payroll going forward.  Scary times to be a Mets fan...for those of us that are left.