one. Only a sports media nerd with nothing in his life would obsess over what I’m about to point out, but I can’t help it.
Ratings are ready for the two Saturday games of week 18 that aired last weekend on ABC / ESPN.
To no one’s surprise, the numbers were very good. Chiefs-Broncos generated 19.1 million viewers at the 4:30 p.m. window, while 20.3 million viewers watched Cowboys-Eagles at 8 p.m.
The Cowboys will always draw large numbers no matter where and when they play, and the Chiefs today are a draw thanks to their fun offense. But this is still an outstanding audience for a Saturday, which is a dead night for television ratings.
ESPN, however, is putting an extra spin on those numbers that is downright ridiculous. The chain brought the games under its Monday night football umbrella. If you saw the games, the broadcasters referred to them as a “Saturday edition of Monday night football. “
Thanks to that distinction, ESPN is now grouping the ratings from Saturday’s two games with its MNF numbers.
In a press release to promote the audience success of both contests, ESPN released ridiculous nuggets such as:
- Vaqueros-Águilas: most viewed MNF I play since 2009; Third Best in the ESPN Era.
- Chiefs-Broncos: ESPN’s fifth most-watched MNF game.
- Monday night football: Doubleheader Saturday raised MNF’s regular-season viewership to an average of 14,182,000 viewers per game (19 games), the best regular-season viewership for ESPN since 2010 and the third-best since 2006.
THESE GAMES WERE NOT PLAYED ON MONDAY NIGHT !!! This is a total comparison of apples and oranges.
Again, in the grand scheme of life, ESPN’s use of funny business and hoaxes to change viewership ratings is neither important nor relevant. But it shows that anyone can change the ratings to fit whatever narrative they want.
two. Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett IV appeared on Good morning america on Tuesday and it certainly looked like he had been celebrating his victory in the national title game in a big way.
3. ESPN’s David Pollack avoided the X and O analysis for last night’s Alabama-Georgia game and gave us a different kind of breakdown.
Four. Alabama’s radio call of Georgia’s interception and ran back for a game-ending touchdown was hysterical.
5. For my fellow degenerate players, this is a must read story About a little problem that occurred with some Draymond Green prop bets a couple of nights ago.
6. This week SI Media Podcast, which launched Thursday afternoon, is a roundtable edition with Al Michaels and Tom Rinaldi on the career of John Madden.
Michaels, who worked with Madden for seven seasons, and Rinaldi, who was the director of the recent Fox Sports documentary on Madden, share behind-the-scenes stories, give us insight into Madden’s personality, and discuss some of the memorable relationships Madden had. throughout his career.
It covers everything from Madden’s fear of flying the Madden Cruiser to his association with Pat Summerall and much more.
Following Michaels and Rinaldi is the weekly segment “Traina Thoughts” with Sal Licata from WFAN and SNY TV in New York. This week, Sal and I talked about his fight against COVID-19, the reaction to a Wizards announcer who made an innocent mistake, Kirk Herbstreit’s recent controversial comments, and the best things we saw over the holidays.
You can listen to the podcast below or download it at Apple, Spotify Y stapler.
You can also see the SI Media Podcast in Youtube.
7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: On this date, January 11, 2004, the episode “Ben’s Birthday Party” of Check your enthusiasm it aired, and we learned Larry’s true feelings about the skewers and the song “Happy Birthday.”
Be sure to catch up with previous editions of Traina Thoughts and take a look at the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast Presented by Jimmy Traina at Apple, Spotify or stapler. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter Y Instagram.
www.si.com
Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.