Houston Texans Local Television Ratings Increase, Yet Still Lag Behind 19 Other NFL Teams

Sports Business Daily has the local television ratings for all 32 NFL teams, and it shows that your Houston Texans enjoyed a 9.4% increase in viewership in the Houston market this past year. Presumably, that was due in large part to the fact that the 2014 Houston Texans were 9-7 as opposed to the 2013 Houston Texans' 2-14 record. I suppose there just aren't as many people who want to watch a fourteen week long train wreck as there are people who want to watch a team that contended for a wild card berth.

For all the talk about Houston being crazed for football, the data indicates that Houston ranks 20th out of 32 markets in terms of local television ratings. How do you explain that? Is it that Houston is a city that has a lot of transplants from other parts of the world that don't follow the Texans? Is it the sheer size of the Houston market lending itself to tons of people doing other things on a Sunday afternoon? Something else? Share any theories you have in the Comments below.