That is actually really sad. Are they ever gonna fix that? I don't worry that much about because of league pass and I live in D.C. but it really has to suck being a fan of a team and not being able to watch the games.
Yeah I live local so LP is not an option unfortunately.....Idk if they dont fix this soon I might do somehting drastic....... Spoiler
How is Atlanta, Washington and San Francisco bigger than us in terms of BOTH population and team play?
The San Francisco Bay Area is much denser than Houston. It has over 7 million people all rooting for the same teams. The Washington metropolitan area has nearly 6 million people. It's just DC and a bunch of suburbs. The Washington-Baltimore metro area is over 9 million. Atlanta is not as big as Houston (over 4 million for the entire metro area vs 5.5 for Houston), but it is the center of cable television. It is the center of the South.
I lived in Va Beach(Now DC), which is like the southern most point of VA and when I was there most of the people that live throughout Virginia are Redskin and Wizards fans. Virginia doesn't have any real sports teams, kinda sad but true.
At least you are not West Virginia. They got nuttin. I guess they are Steeler's fans, except when the Redskins are in the Super Bowl. Or is it the other way around? They probably still don't know basketball exists.
There is no concrete measurement by which Houston is a small market, or by which Miami is a larger market.
That all depends on who is already playing there, except for the Lakers and Knicks, and even they are debatable at this point.
An entire page from a ratio payroll per win. Why? Miami is smaller but Florida is huge so Miami isn't a smaller market.
No, the Houston area is larger than both DC and Atlanta. Houston has 6.2M and DC is still under 6. Now if you add in Baltimore then its bigger, but they are not the same.
While not definitive, here are the Nielsen numbers for market size: Rank Designated Market Area (DMA) TV Homes % of US 1 New York 7,461,030 6.442 2 Los Angeles 5,665,780 4.892 3 Chicago 3,534,080 3.052 4 Philadelphia 2,963,500 2.559 5 Dallas-Ft. Worth 2,655,290 2.293 6 San Francisco-Oak-San Jose 2,518,900 2.175 7 Boston (Manchester) 2,433,040 2.101 8 Washington, DC (Hagrstwn) 2,412,250 2.083 9 Atlanta 2,375,050 2.051 10 Houston 2,289,360 1.977 Houston is a top 10 market. Really the numbers get pretty flat after the top 3.
By comparison: 36 San Antonio 906,210 0.783 41 Oklahoma City 730,020 0.630 Those are small market teams.
Why? It's a bleacher report article. As for Miami, Florida might be big, but Texas is bigger. So, Miami is still a smaller market. That's too easy. Baltimore doesn't have its own basketball team. So Baltimore basketball fans will tend to root for the Wizards as the hometown team. It's probably fair to count Baltimore in their sphere. Even so, I think there is no doubt that Houston is a larger-than-average market for the NBA. But, I think chenjy is also right in that there are a couple of teams that have supercharged markets that make them marketable in a way that it actually impacts their behavior in team-building. Those teams are the Knicks and the Lakers. Miami might have bandwagon fans from all over the world, but the Heat don't get the whole pie of the revenues from those fans -- teams make most of their money from their local TV deals and ticket sales. Money from the Heat fan in Iowa for jerseys and league pass go to the league and gets split among the teams. So at the end of the day, the Heat aren't incentivized to misuse their cap the way the Knicks are. The Knicks and Lakers have big TV deals and markets large enough to support 2 teams (Clippers and Nets may change the equation over time, but not yet) that allow them to charge exploitative ticket prices and still fill up (the average ticket price for the Lakers and Knicks is over $100). You can see how all that money changes their GMs' behavior, with both teams spending profligately to avoid being bad (and, at the moment, failing). So -- where it makes a difference to team behavior regarding payroll efficiency -- chenjy is right that there are a couple of super-teams that are qualitatively different than other, smaller big markets. I think he just cast the net a little too wide on who those were. The Rockets don't play at a disadvantage to Miami or San Fran. But, there is a disadvantage competing with the Lakers and Knicks (which, ironically, is an advantage because those teams end up making foolish decisions).
