Nevius: Faithful 49ers fans return to cheer on their hot team

It started about the sixth game of the season. A 49ers fan would say, “Just for kicks I looked it up. The Super Bowl is in Miami.” And then they’d wink.

Now the wink is gone.

In characteristic runaway fashion, 49ers fans have ?skipped the rest of the season, ?leapfrogged the playoffs and are speculating how their team will match up against Baltimore in the Super Bowl.

I’d remind them that, besides the local fellows, there are four other teams that only have two losses, including Sunday’s opponent, New Orleans. So let’s don’t get ahead of ourselves.

But the point is taken. The 49ers are hot, baby. Levi’s is full and rockin’. It’s that loyal Niners fan base, right? Faithful then. Faithful now.

Except …

Last year the 49ers were 4-12. There was widespread grumbling. There were vast spaces of empty seats in (still) shiny Levi’s Stadium. Want tickets? No problem. Where would you like to sit?

Which raises the question: Are these true die-hard Chicago Cubs-like fans? Or bandwagon jumpers? Because if this is really the standard needed to rekindle support - you have to go 12-2 - yikes.

This isn’t to pick on the 49ers - who are having a sensational season and are a swell bunch of guys - or their supporters. It is a question of what is being asked of professional sports.

Take another championship dynasty team that recently moved into a glittering new building.

Last year, the Warriors were everyone’s consensus “Best Team in the World.” A fifth consecutive trip to the NBA Finals was a foregone conclusion. And once they got there, they were the clear favorite for another championship.

You know how that turned out - injuries and disappointment. Today the Warriors are in and out of the dreaded “worst record in the league” category. Empty seats have begun to appear at Chase Center.

Which, granted, makes sense. Tickets are expensive. Who wants to pay top dollar to see understudies?

But you’d think that those incredibly loyal fans - who often proudly say they weren’t just there just for the championships; they were on board when the team was losing - would want to check out the new guys on TV. See what Eric Paschall looks like. Or if this is the night Jordan Poole finally finds his shot.

Nope. According to Golden Gate Sports, among others, local viewership has dropped 51% The league even canceled two scheduled national broadcasts of Warriors games.

And it is not just the Warrior Worriers. It’s the entire league. Yahoo Finance says NBA viewership on TNT is down 22%. On ESPN it has plunged 19%.

Theories abound. Maybe marquee West Coast teams play too late for East Coast viewing. Or stars like Kevin Durant are injured. And speaking personally, when the game is, say, the Magic vs. the Wizards, I’m not sure I can identify anyone on either side.

Dallas owner Mark Cuban blames cable TV. His point is that cable isn’t available to everyone, whereas “Football benefits from being on broadcast TV.”

OK, that’s part of it. But don’t let anyone tell you the NBA isn’t freaking out. Look at some suggested tweaks.

First, going from 82 games to 78. (Effect, negligible. Four games is nothing.) Second, an eight-team “play-in” format at the end of the season. (Not bad. Could be exciting.)

And, most dramatically, creating a mid-season, 30-team playoff. (For starters, you need a slide rule to calculate the brackets. Second, who cares who wins a mid-season tournament?)

But you see the trend. This is all geared to increasing interest in the doldrums of the regular season. Woo-hoo, we’re mid-season tournament champs.

The NFL, with its national TV advantage, goes in another direction to get to the same goal. It’s not a Sunday afternoon game any more. There’s Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football and Thursday Night Football.

Just this year, owners toyed with the idea of lengthening the season. They presented it as a boon for the players - getting rid of two pointless exhibition games. But the tradeoff was adding two regular-season games, to 18.

That’s two more chances to showcase the product. And you notice the NFL flexes games up and down the schedule, moving a hot game later in the day so it can be on Sunday night prime time. All to maximize those fickle phenomenon fans.

Which, naturally, brings us to baseball. The bats-and-balls crowd is doing it the old-fashioned way. The premise is to build up a loyal local fan base. Granted, there will be some leakage in interest if your team falters (Giants ratings were down some 30% last year). But the basic theory pencils out.

First, let’s concede that baseball doesn’t get great national ratings. Lately, even the playoffs and World Series have seen disappointing numbers.

But locally, baseball on TV is a solid bet. Forbes tells us that last year 24 (out of 30) regional networks that carried baseball were “ranked No. 1 on cable TV in their market in prime time.”

So are the paying customers happy with the comfortable buzz of a combined 324 Giants/A’s games a season? Or do they want sizzle, pizazz and trophies? Because if they only love you when you are winning, you’ve got problems.

When the Warriors started to falter this year, I said to team president Rick Welts, “Man, keeping this going isn’t easy.”

“It isn’t supposed to be,” he said.

He’s right. But do the fans get that?

Contact C.W. Nevius at cw.nevius@pressdemocrat.com. Twitter: @cwnevius