There finally might be more interest Los Angeles for the city’s NFC team than there is for it in the market the squad abandoned. But that apparently isn’t the case with its AFC club — at least not according to television ratings, which reveal a massive lack of interest there in the local NFL teams in comparison to other markets.
Last season the Rams had their first playoff game in Los Angeles in 32 years, their second season back there after spending 21 in St. Louis.
Astonishingly, that contest drew a better television rating in St. Louis, which they had jilted, than their new home town. Nielsen reported that 10.9 percent of homes with a TV in LA market tuned in, while the rating in St. Louis was 13.3.
But Los Angeles turned the corner for the Rams’ playoff game Saturday as it generated a 23.4 rating, an NFC semifinal matchup with the Cowboys, while the figure in St. Louis was 18.5.
Is that trend or just a blip?
During the just-completed regular season, the Rams had nearly the same overall rating for the 11 games that were televised in St. Louis (12.0) as Los Angeles (12.1) drew for the full slate of 16 games that were shown there.
The 23.4 rating the Rams had in LA last weekend is the best number they have generated in their three seasons back there. But it is a paltry figure for a postseason game in a team’s home market. And it fell far short of the worst rating (34.1) the Rams pulled in St. Louis for the 10 postseason games they had while based in Missouri.
The situation with the Los Angeles’ AFC entrant, the Chargers, is similar to what happened last year with the Rams — the team had a better rating in the city it jettisoned than the one in which it now resides. And the difference was even more profound. The Chargers played the Patriots last weekend and the rating in LA was 17.2. In San Diego, which they jilted two years earlier, the figure was 29.7.
In the big picture, the ratings in Los Angeles for both playoff games of the new home teams lagged far behind the numbers generated in the cities of the other teams that were playing. The telecasts there averaged a 20.3 rating, or about a third of what New Orleans drew for the Saints’ contest. The lowest rating elsewhere last weekend in a home market for one of the playoff teams was in Dallas, where Nielsen said 41.5 percent of homes with a TV turned in — or more than twice the number that LA averaged for its teams.
BY THE NUMBERS
How teams that were in the playoffs last weekend fared in the TV ratings in their home market:
TEAM CITY NETWORK RATING
Saints New Orleans Fox 60.2
Chiefs Kansas City NBC 56.1
Patriots Boston CBS 45.9
Eagles Philadelphia Fox 44.8
Colts Indianapolis NBC 44.5
Cowboys Dallas Fox 41.5
Rams Los Angeles Fox 23.4
Chargers Los Angeles CBS 17.2
Note • The rating is the percent of homes with a TV tuning in.
Source: “Los Angeles” – Google News