Local NBA ratings are way up, with you-know-who leading the way

The news for the NBA keeps getting better. Local ratings are up just about all over the league’s landscape, with the champion Golden State Warriors taking in a massive 120 percent increase on their local telecasts as they traipse across the league.

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The Dubs are also enjoy a massive spike in share, which is rare for teams in larger markets with myriad entertainment options. Via Pro Basketball Talk, here’s the grab from Sports Business Daily:

The defending champion Golden State Warriors have seen their local TV ratings more than double this season compared with last year’s midpoint. With an 8.42 average rating on CSN Bay Area, the Warriors’ 120 percent spike in ratings is easily the largest increase in the league.

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Overall, as the NBA enters its All-Star break this weekend, the league’s local telecasts are up 6 percent year over year, according to Nielsen. Eleven teams have seen gains in their local ratings this season, while 15 have dropped. Denver Nuggets games on Altitude are flat with last year.

These ratings are only through January, impressive considering that the NBA’s fair weather fans usually don’t make a habit to tune in religiously during football (which has more games than ever on weeknights) season. Famously, sometimes-there fans don’t get their NBA on until Christmas, so for local ratings to be jumping a bit during the league’s anonymous part of the year is an encouraging sign.

It falls directly in line with the skyrocketing valuations we’ve seen for NBA teams, and the idea (in a culture that has seen more people than ever cut the TV cord) that live sports contests remain appointment viewing in a world that likes to binge-watch in front of a tablet.

Golden State’s two fiercest on-court competitors – the Spurs and Cavaliers – lead the NBA in market share, with both enjoying increases. Expectedly, the lowly Brooklyn Nets and Denver Nuggets (who feature a, hmm, somewhat polarizing announcing team) rank at the bottom of the pile. The Nets share is half of what 29th-ranked Denver pulls in, though, par for the course for a team that features an unholy combination of boring play, bad basketball, while playing in a city that has yet to take to them.

The disappointing Washington Wizards and New Orleans Pelicans saw the biggest decrease in viewership, while the Pelicans recorded the fewest amount of average viewers per contest at just 7,000 – a bit of a ways behind Golden State’s league-leading 209,000 a game.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops