Jeremy Lin's out-of-nowhere emergence has had a huge effect on the Knicks' play. His impact on their television ratings has been even more impressive. I spoke about Lin's impact and the Knicks' television metrics with Stephen Master, Vice President of Sports for Nielsen.
Between Lin's first game as a rotation player - February 4, against the Nets - and last night's win over the Raptors, local television ratings for Knicks games are up 207 percent, Master told me. The Toronto game drew a 4.3 rating in New York - a remarkable number considering:
- the Raptors entered the game with a 9-20 record and aren't a big rival of the Knicks
- yesterday was Valentine's Day - a day you might assume many Knick fans would have plans in the evening
- and due to a long-running dispute between Cablevision - the Knicks' corporate parent - and Time Warner Cable, Knick games are not available to a significant portion of the cable subscribers in the team's home city.
Master also said that the 4.3 rating compares very favorably with the 4.2 average rating generated by New York Yankee games last season. The Yankees are typically the highest-rated team in the New York market (NFL clubs excluded, as nearly all NFL games are broadcast on network television) and did not have the same limitation on viewership that the Cablevision/Time Warner impasse has created.
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