The good news is that the ratings only can go up for the Cubs and White Sox. It is hard to imagine them getting much lower.

For the most part, viewers tuned out both teams during their 73-89 seasons. According to Sports Business Daily, the Cubs and Sox ranked among the bottom 5 for the lowest ratings on local regional sports cable networks.

The Sox were at 1.15 on Comcast SportsNet, which actually was a 4 percent increase from 2013. However, they only were ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros, both of which had limited access to their networks because of distribution problems.

The Cubs, meanwhile, were the fifth lowest at 1.5 on CSN, down 6 percent from 2013; 1 local ratings point is the equivalent of 35,000 homes.

WGN-Ch. 9 does not disclose ratings information for the Cubs and White Sox, but the final numbers likely mirror what occurred on CSN.

The highest rating for both teams was a 3.37 for the Cubs-White Sox game on May 5. The Cubs have some hope for a turnaround based on their game against Milwaukee on Sept. 3, which did a 3.2 rating. An estimated 115,000 homes tuned in to watch young prospects Jorge Soler, Javier Baez and Kyle Hendricks.