The Bulls’ recent descent in the Eastern Conference standings has been matched this season by a massive decline in television ratings.
According to Sports Business Daily, Chicago’s local TV ratings have dropped 29 percent this season – representing the fourth steepest decline in all of the NBA.
Only Atlanta, New Orleans and Washington have experienced larger declines.
Still, the Bulls’ average audience size of 122,000 households ranks fourth in the league – behind only Golden State (209,000), New York (160,000) and Cleveland (141,000), according to the report. It makes sense considering the size of the market.
The midseason numbers don’t come as a huge surprise, either, considering Chicago’s erratic play under first-year coach Fred Hoiberg – which has made the team, at times, unwatchable.
Perhaps if the Bulls had shown improvement over the course of the season the numbers wouldn’t be what they are, but instead, the opposite is true.
Chicago is 5-11 in the its past 16 games and it seems the problems the Bulls deal with currently are many of the same ones they dealt with under former coach Tom Thibodeau.
Perhaps the greatest trouble with the 2015-2016 Bulls is that you never know which team will show up on a given night – and that fact has left many fans not showing up at all.
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Stats via Basketball-Reference
