In a recent wish-list column on Sportsline.com, Ray Ratto made this wish:

We wish to care much less about World Series television ratings. If the games were good, fine. If not, fine again. But ratings are only a problem for the ratings department (read: six chimps with pocket protectors) at Fox.

Then, a few paragraphs later, he made this wish: 

We wish to care much less about the suggestion that the NHL has fully recovered from the lockout. It hasn’t, not by a long shot, and the latest example is the fact that in the Bay Area, the game between the Sharks and Ducks, two of the three best and most entertaining teams in the league, were out-rating-pointed by a replay of one of the three California high school football championship games.

I’m confused.  Do ratings matter or not?