If the Federal Communications chairman, Kevin Martin, wants to strengthen his case for change in the way people purchase their cable television service, the local YES Network might be good place to start. For a better part of the last year, Martin has advocated for cable operators to allow consumers the right to choose cable channels they want to make up their basic or expanded service.

Martin, along with Senator Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania, and Senator Kerry, a Democrat of Massachusetts, has been taking a close look at how the cable and satellite television industries conduct business. Any changes that the three men propose could have a major impact on cable and satellite TV rights fees — one of the building blocks of professional sports.

At present, nearly 100% of the more than 90 million cable TV subscribers are paying for sports channels that they never watch. Martin maintains that cable consumers should not have to pay for what they don’t watch or want. The YES Network recently released its viewership numbers but the data did little to sway Martin’s argument.

On January 16, the YES public relations department announced that “for the fourth straight year, Yankees Entertainment & Sports Network ranked as the mostwatched regional sports network in the country.” According to Nielsen Media Research data, YES averaged 31,000 households in total-day delivery in 2006 (between December 26, 2005, and December 31, 2006) versus 25,000 for the Boston Red Sox and Bruins-owned New England Sports Network. For the first time, the YES network matched NESN in prime time, with a daily average of 80,000 households.

The Red Sox may have won more World Series since 2001 than the Yankees, but George Steinbrenner’s team is doing better than John Henry’s Sox when the results for eyeballs glued to the TV screen are tallied. YES averaged 316,000 viewers per game versus the 252,000 who tuned in for NESN’s coverage of the Red Sox.

In the New York market, YES’s total-day average household delivery of 31,000 topped the 28,000 combined average for the three other area cable TV channels, Madison Square Garden Network, FSN New York, and SportsNet New York. In primetime, YES trailed the three other networks’ combined average total of 84,000 by just 4,000 households.

And if the Nielsen numbers are to be believed, there are nights when absolutely no one is watching. According to Nielsen data, just 736 people in the Madison Square Garden Network universe watched the Devils January 27 match up with the Florida Panthers. Through February, the Devils’ Nielsen numbers came in at about 13,000 viewers per game; the Rangers clocked in at nearly 37,000 per cablecast, and the Islanders pulled in a little more than 7,000 eyeballs a game. On the Saturday night when a purported 736 viewers took in the Devils game an additional 8,000 tuned into a Buffalo–Islanders game on FSN. But it was SNY that scored big that night: Its presentation of a National Lacrosse League game featuring a New York Titans-Rochester contest captured more than 10,000 viewers.

About a year ago, a Nets vs. Knicks game was available on both the MSG and YES networks. YES outperformed MSG with 103,000 viewers to the Garden network’s 86,000. According to Nielsen, YES earned a 1.2 rating in households, while the MSG game came in at .9. Neither the Knicks nor the Nets is a hot TV property when playing each another or against other NBA teams.

Because of the Yankees, YES has scored big, but just how big? Considering that YES reaches more than 4 million households, the numbers are anemic. The Yankees command less than 10% of the YES universe. While the YES network fares better than Madison Square Garden (which reaches more households) and Sports Net New York (which counts fewer total households than YES), NESN can still boast a few hundred thousand more households than YES.

On a national level, the most expensive cable channel, ESPN, also posts unimpressive numbers. With the exception of NFL games, most of ESPN’s Nielsen numbers are terrible. ESPN, which has more than 90 million customers, did not have a single show in cable’s top 15 the week of January 29–February 4. This is pretty remarkable considering that the network carries SportsCenter, NBA, and college basketball games. (This may have something to do with the fact that ESPN does not have either World Wrestling Entertainment or SpongeBob SquarePants — both a constant presence in cable’s top 15 — among its programming. Much was made of the NHL’s All-Star Game’s negligible 0.7 showing on the Versus cable network, but it is a network that does not have the penetration of ESPN or the TNT network.

Those pushing for cable to go a la carte can point to the ratings for NBA All-Star games on the much bigger TNT. The network’s numbers have been bad in recent years and last year clocked in at an all time low of 4.3. Moreover, the NBA averaged a 1.1 rating (about 1 million viewers per game) on TNT in 2005–06; ESPN’s ratings for the NBA are about the same. Similarly, NBA ratings for this season have declined by about 7% on both TNT and ESPN. Only National Football League and a select few NBA playoff games have garnered substantial cable ratings.

Of course a counter argument could be made that the cable television numbers really aren’t that bad, that people are buying Major League Baseball’s Extra Innings, the National Hockey League’s Center Ice, or the NFL’s Sunday Ticket packages. And that they are watching games on services like these — ones Nielsen doesn’t rate. Those packages rake in big bucks for their respective leagues, particularly the NFL–DirecTV deal which gives NFL owners $700 million annually through 2010 for the rights to retransmit games on satellite to those fans interested in seeing every regional Sunday game.

The NFL–DirecTV deal has not pleased Specter, who laments that the only way for cable subscribers to get in on the Sunday Package deal is first to purchase DirecTV. Still, it’s unclear what Specter can do to the NFL besides huff and puff.

Not to be outdone, Kerry has also weighed in on a proposed 2009 MLB–DirecTV deal that would give DirecTV the exclusive rights to the Extra Innings package. DirecTV may add the league’s planned baseball network on DirecTV’s basic tier — a move that cable operators resisted with the NFL and its network and will likely oppose with MLB. In a written statement, Kerry said, “I am opposed to anything that deprives people of reasonable choices. In this day and age, consumers should have more choices — not fewer. I’d like to know how this serves the public — a deal that will force fans to subscribe to DirecTV in order to tune in to their favorite players. A Red Sox fan ought to be able to watch their team without having to switch to DirecTV.”

Sports leagues and owners cannot be happy with Martin’s “pro choice” stance on cable subscription service. They argue programming would grow more expensive, buy rates for sports would be prohibitive, and both national and regional sports networks would be crippled, with ESPN standing the most to lose. But Specter and Kerry’s efforts may prove toothless. The pair of senators alone cannot undo the anti-trust exemptions that allow sports leagues to bundle and sell broadcast rights to their teams as single entities.

So cable operators will likely continue to deprive customers of the chance to cherry-pick the service for which they pay. If Martin, Specter, and Kerry could change all of that, they would not only change the way we watch cable television, but also the face of economics in professional sports in the 21st century.