The Orioles are just that much more exciting to watch than the worst lineup in the league in the worst stadium. The O's have history in the area, the Nats are just the Expos south of the Canadian border. They stunk up there and no one cared. Now they're here in DC, they still stink, and no one cares.

The worst stadium? When did the Gnats move into Tropicana Field?

You must realize that the Nationals are a young team plus the opening day lineup looks more like a mash unit. Ryan Zimmerman, Nick Johnson, Lastings Milledge, Austin Kearns, Paul LaDoca, and now Elija Dukes have spent considerable time on the disabled list. I think to date 15 front line players have been on the disabled list at some time. Give them a chance, the team is drafting well and trying to build with young talent. The stadium is an awesome place to watch a ball game, but Rome wasn't built in a season either. I'll put in for my 2010 playoff tickets now.

9000 total households or 9000 households in the D.C. area?
I can't be bothered with registering for the subscription.

"more than three times less than"
so, was "less than 1/3 of" not clear enough?

i highly doubt there are loads of washingtonians who have remained diehard o's fans (presuming anyone was diehard to begin with) and are watching baltimore play instead of d.c. the fact that not everyone gets masn2 on their cable system (i didn't when i had cable and i live in d.c.) should not be underestimated, nor that even when they do, it's waaaay up the dial.

Hey, this team would be drawing television ratings and attendance if someone had of built an [expletive] stadium in downtown Montreal when they were the Expos.
Instead, the Nats are living the dream, err, nightmare that was the Montreal Expos. Low ratings, low attendance, low chance of going anywhere but to contraction depot.

not that i'm defending the quality of the team, but i will say, depending on your television provider, it is that hard to find masn2, or figure out which "local" team will broadcast on which masn on which night at which time. verizon fios and comcast both stick masn2 on an "occasional channel" which is sometimes the next up or down from masn, and sometimes is channel 1 or something totally different. but, since all that tv money is going to angelos anyway (90% or maybe it's down to 85% this year), i don't mind contributing to the crap ratings by watching something else

That's just sports life in DC. Think all those Pens and Flyers fans at Verizon Center are going to be replaced next year by those new Caps fans? Nope. It's a Redskins town permanently and then whoever is making a playoff run.
Everyone commenting at the Sports Bog seems to blame the network, but if you're a fan, you'll watch your team.

i watch the nats games nearly every day...and i don't think i'm the only fan watching!! the new stadium has drawn good crowds and it's a great place to watch a game...don't knock it till you've been there. it takes time to build a team..they have many good players who have had the bad luck of being on the dl most of the season. keep hanging in there nats! you do have some fans who plan on being around a while.

sometimes it's hard to figure out where to find the nats on tv. today they're on masn, tomorrow they're on masn2 ("local access" on my system). or maybe they're on channel 20. you never know.

If they only had a decent team...the stadium isn't all that bad. and no, they are not showing any games on channel 20...you need cable to watch any Nats' games...which I think is bull...

Josa or whatever,
they do show Nats games on my20 usually on thurs/fri/sat telecasts.
Furthermore,it is Kasten's AND Bowden's fault that they cannot evaluate "talent" or make the "smart moves" when it comes to baseball players. Certainly purging the Cincinnati Reds didn't help either but saying the Nationals are in trouble is an understatement.

There are many issues that combine to make this a real story and one that I doubt will go away. But the unfortunate conclusion is: baseball is a failure in DC. Let's look at some facts, combined with my own opinions:
1) It isn't like the Nats were drawing like wildfire in their first season in DC. They tried for decades to get a team here and when they finally did, the first game at RFK sold out and the second game was less than half full. You can look that up. Even when the Nats were 51-30 at the halfway mark, in first place, in the first year of a city supposedly starving for baseball, they still were only drawing an average of just under 30,000 fans.
2) The team was crippled by MLB ownership that didn't spend on anything.
3) The new owners are worse than MLB was. They refuse to sign any free agents (except Paul Lo Duca--what was that?!?) and their trades, extensions and signings have been awful.
4) The new lobbying laws stopped a lot of expensive tickets being purchased--and DC doesn't have many corporations, the team was relying on lobbying expenses.
5) The new owners rubbed a LOT of fans the wrong way by screwing them on season tickets in the new stadium. Conservatively, about 5000 of the best seats were taken by the owners and reserved for cronies. I, and many others, got kicked out of their prime seats.
6) The whole MASN dispute held the Nats back from getting a foothold for the first years, as did lack of marketing by MLB.
7) MASN is indeed hard to find and not in all DC area homes.
8) The team stinks.
9) DC is a town of transients, so there is less of a home town feel and many locals still follow the teams from where they came from.
10) The Redskins dominate all news and thoughts and for some reason other sports can't get the love like they can in other cities.
There's probably 10 more reasons, but not many of them are going away any time soon.

11) their parking solution is a nightmare. taking the shuttle from rfk to nats park? so little spaces at nats park to begin with, once the game is over, the masses (if that many) are herded back to the same navy yard stop in which they came in (same problem with rfk).
12) the food and beer is supremely overpriced and not that delicious.
13) also considered overpriced are the various souvenirs.
14) the nats attempt to catter to the casual fans but fail miserably due to the product on the field and (lack of) management running the team.
15) at this point, failure to seek trades for our entire roster and starting over by bringing up prospects.

16) the presidents race. by teddy not winning at all, exemplies the ineptitude of the nationals to win anything important.
17) hyper inflation of ticket prices and forcing the casual fan all the way up to the nosebleeds will not help the team grow.
18) the park has a alcoholic license with miller and budweiser, two awfully tasting "beer" companies.
19) too many cincinnati retreads.
20) general moron jim bowden doesn't have a clue on how to perform being a successful gm.
21) as the day pass, the nationals are bleeding money and as with the losses piling up, that's not helping either.