For the Win – The NFL Dominates again The Week That Was

For the Win.  The NFL over takes everything again even when there are no games being played.  The NBA is doing themselves no favors by how things are going in their playoffs.   The NHL is making some significant strides.  Even after people were worried that ratings would be down after the top seeds all went out of the playoffs.  NASCAR had one of the most exciting races in a long time and no one watched.  Baseball had games postponed due to snow.  Yes it is almost May and games were postponed due to winter weather.  All this and more in The Week That Was.

NFL Draft For the Win

The NFL draft is now a huge three day event.  It draws hundreds of thousands of fans to where ever the draft is being held.  This year it was in Nashville.  They put on quite the show.  According to the preliminary numbers over 600,000 people attended.  That is a huge win for Nashville and a huge win for the NFL.   There are games in the NBA that don’t get 600,000 watching it on tv.  The NFL got that number just by throwing a big party and picking players.   The amazing thing about this is as big as it is it still does not over shadow anything in the NFL regular season.  Unlike the NBA where people like Mike Greenberg keep reminding us that the off season is more exciting then the season.  No one is saying that about the NFL.  It gets the attention but the season is still king.

The draft was on three different stations this year.  It pulled in ratings big enough to beat most of the playoff games in the other sports.  It really is pretty amazing.  I did not watch any of the coverage on ABC.  I really am not looking for personal interest stories during the draft.  I want to know the stats of the players and how they are being projected to do.  The personal interest stories can come later.   I watched some of the draft on the NFL network.  I can’t really explain the sound that they kept playing.  It was kind of a combination of a yell and scream.  It was annoying enough that I had to turn the sound off.  Later i had to switch to ESPN.  Not ideal but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do.

Now the NFL will be on to picking up Un Drafted Free Agents and then on to the rookie camps.  Then things will really start to get interesting.

NBA Playoffs Odd Results at Best

The playoffs should be a super exciting part of any leagues season.  We already talked about how the first round of the NBA playoffs.  like the first half of an NBA games.  Really it means nothing.   So now we are into the second round.  The games should be where it is at.  For some reason the big story coming out is how the Rockets think they got screwed.  Not in the 2019 playoffs.  In the 2018 playoffs.  Maybe they did.  I don’t know.  Here is what I do know.  They lost.  Last year they lost to the Warriors.  If they keep looking back at what happened last year.  Complaining about how they got screwed they will lose again.  There is nothing that can be done about what happened last year.  Time to move on.  Put your attention and energy on the series with the Warriors this year.

In game one James Harden had the second most free throws in the game.  The only person to have more was Kevin Durant.  He had one more attempt.  Durant 15 attempts.  Harden 14.  So not really a big difference there.  It was a close game the Warriors won by only four points.  But the story that is the top of the news feeds is the Rockets complaining about last years series.  Not sure what they are hoping to accomplish with this.  Do they think that it will change what happens in the series this year?  I honestly do not know.  Really though get over it and focus on this year.  It is interesting that a year later they are making excuses for why they lost.  You really want to prove your point then take the Warriors out this year.  It is 2019 not 2018 so catch up.

NHL Lower Seeds are Ratings Gold

Something interesting happened in the NHL.  The lower seeds dominated and people were predicting that the ratings were going to be garbage since the higher seeds were out.  I was hearing comments about how NBC was going to be so unhappy with the way the NHL playoffs were going.  Weil it has not turned out that way.  Game two between the Blue Jackets and the Bruins was the highest rated game that NBC has had.  The NBA playoff ratings are down 17 percent from last year.  Over all the NHL playoff ratings are up 1 percent.  Does not sound like a lot but the up is all coming from teams that most people though would be out of the playoffs already.

I was listening to my local sports radio as I tend to do when I am driving around town.  One of the hosts of the show, I will not name him, could not understand how the ratings would be different when the games are on the regular NBC channel opposed to the NBC Sports channel.  I really don’t understand how he cannot understand it.  Believe it or not there are still people that do not have cable and watch things over there air.  There are also people that will not search or look for shows that are not on channels they regularly watch.  So the reason the audience is larger and does not transfer is due to a larger potential audience.  I am not sure how this is difficult to understand.  I would how ever recommend listening to them,  The station is streamed on their web site.  It is a good laugh most of the time and a good way to pass the time.  You can find them at 97.1 The Fan.  It is local sports radio not worse than the national guys to take it for what it is.

NASCAR Super Speedway

Talladega used to be a race that I never missed.  On the Super Speedway with the high speeds and tight racing it was always a must watch race.  This year I actually forgot that it was on.  There was a time when something like that would never happen.   I got into watching Bar Rescue and going over what happened in the NFL draft.  Next thing I knew I was getting an update on my phone that Chase Elliott won the race.   I remember thinking to myself.  Why am I getting this notification what day is it?  Turns out the notification was right and I just completely forgot about the race.  There was a time that would never happen.  Even though I am a small sample size it is an indication that NASCAR has some serious issues that  they need to take care of.  I am not sure that they can.  I did go take a look at the race recap and it looks like it was a pretty good race.    I am a fan of Chase Elliott so I am happy that he won the race.  Now if I can just remember when the next race is on.

On the TV the Tube Not You

The winter tv schedule is winding down.  Shows are starting to end for the Summer schedule.  It it at this point when the decision makers for the shows smack us in the face.  I get that ratings are king since that is how they are making money.   The more people that watch the more they can charge for ads on the show.  I guess when you have a show you like it seems to you that it is a popular show.   One of the networks that seems to pull us in and the kick us to the curb all the time is FOX.   It seems they get some pretty good shows but then they never really give them a chance and cancel them.  We watched all of Gotham.   Fox almost cancelled it a few years ago but they changed their mind and kept it for five season and 100 episodes.  It was a good story and put together well.  It could have went a few seasons longer but so be it.  The other show that we were watching on Fox was The Gifted.  A story about Mutants being hunted down.  Another show that was put together very well.  We were really enjoying watching this show.  The season ended in a huge cliff hanger.  Turns out the series ended in a huge cliff hanger.  We had no idea that Fox was considering cancelling this show.  But poof it is gone.

The Week that Was is a Weekly recap of my sports observations.  I try to publish the post every Tuesday morning.  Making my week go from Tuesday to Monday.  You can find last weeks post Here.

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