Portland Moves Up Three Spots in Nielsen’s TV Rankings—So Can We Get Another Pro Sports Team Now?

Portland now has 1,180,980 million TV homes, a 3 percent increase from last year.

(Hilary Sander)
By Sophia June

The world may be dumping their TVs for streaming services, but Portland's Nielsen rankings are up this year—an indication that the city could be inching closer to another professional sports team.

In the U.S., there are 2.5 million fewer TV sets than last year, down 2.2 percent from last year, as reported by TV Spy.

But Portland is climbing the Nielsen rankings, which measure the number of TV homes a city has. Portland now has 1,180,980 million TV homes, up from 1,143,670 last year—an increase of 3.26 percent, enough to move Portland from no. 25 to no. 22.  

As Portland's population keeps growing, the city is poised to keep rising in the ranks: Portland is now only about 9,000 TV homes from St. Louis at no. 21.

Meanwhile, some traditionally larger markets are dropping, like San Francisco, who dropped lost 1.5 percent of their TV homes, dropping from no. 6 to no. 8. 

The jump in TV rankings is fuel for the argument that Portland should get a fourth professional sports franchise, an idea that has been floated many times—the latest was just last month when the MLB commissioner said Portland would be on a short list to get a professional baseball team. Last February, Deadspin reported that reps from the Arizona Coyotes were scouting Portland as the potential new location for the NHL team.

Related: Report: Arizona Coyotes Hockey Team Might Be Headed for Portland

After all, the top six media markets—New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Dallas and Washington D.C. have between four and seven professional sports teams and plenty of markets below Portland, such as Baltimore, Cincinnati, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh, have more than one professional team.

A 2016 Sports Illustrated article looking at cities to get the next NFL team cites Portland's rising Nielsen ratings, calling the marker a "critical element to keep in mind, of which the NFL is always mindful."

You can view the entire Nielsen rankings here.

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