The NBA takes over all the head lines this week. LOL Just kidding. There is a network out there that wants you to believe that but even with the NBA All Star break the NFL is still pulling big headlines.The two to three weeks after the Super Bowl are usually the super slow period for the NFL and still they are getting bigger ratings than the NBA. NASCAR kicked off its season.
Speed week was pretty exciting leading up the the Daytona 500. Golf had a difficult go of things. The California rain caused some serious issues with the flow of the tournament. The NHL trade deadline is coming up on February 25th. There is already some interesting action going on. I expect that things will get very interesting as teams position themselves for either a playoff run or the run to the bottom to try and get the first pick in the draft. That is about the most interesting thing in the NHL till sometime next month.
Dayton 500 the race that would not end
The Daytona 500 started out as a pretty uneventful race. It turned into a crash fest where the last 10 laps took more than an hour to finish. There is an old Chinese curse that says. May you live in interesting times. While the first 190 laps of the Daytona 500 were relatively tame. The last 10 were definitely set in interesting times. As the curse implies this is not always a good thing.
The Daytona 500 was a sell out. This is the fourth straight year that the event has sold out. The announcer kept commenting during the race about how full the stand were. This race is so exciting that no one is leaving. The first part of the race was pretty uneventful. People are not leaving because if you are going to chuck out that kind of change to go to a sporting event you are going to gut it out in order to get your moneys worth. The Dayton 500 being exciting and having an attendance and ratings win is nice. It is not an indicator of popularity or how the season is going to go. It is very possible that the race may for shadow a bit about how the season is going to go but in reverse. Just a guess.
Denny Hamilin won a crash filled last few laps that really just because a lucky survival rather than a display of skill. Most of the top contenders were taking out in huge crashes. The biggest one took out 21 cars. There was 42 cars in the race so half of the field was involved. At that poin it was more than half the field since 42 cars were not still running at that point.
I am sure that there is a percentage of people that are watching a race because of the crash potential. Crashes are pretty exciting. With the advances in technology they are over all pretty safe now. Most drivers do end up walking away with no injury or minor injury. The problem is that the crashes slow down the race. Take out drivers that could had a chance to win and change out outcome many times due to no action by a driver being collected by the crash.
Watching The NHL’s Best In Person
I got to go see the Tampa Bay Lightning play the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Lightning were playing in Columbus for their only time this season. I was surprised that Nationwide Arena did not have a larger crowd. It was probably about 80 percent full. With some large sections of empty seats. The Blue Jackets are having an alright season but the Lightning are having a season for the ages. Of course if they do not win the Cup then the regular season will have meant nothing. The Blue Jackets actually out played the Lightning for most of the first two periods.
The problem was that they had nothing to show for it. Even though the Lightning only took 6 shots on goal in the first period they scored twice. The Lightning were definitely waiting for only good shots to take. It showed and they were able to fool the Blue Jackets on those shots. The Turtle Jackets is what the people sitting around us were calling them by the middle of the third period. It was kind of funny.
Watching this game confirmed what I had though for most of the season. The Lightning are the real deal this year. With 22 games left to go in the season. The Lightning could clinch the Presidents trophy with 10 games still to go. That would be an amazing achievement. While they will not get to the record 132 points scored by the 76-77 Canadians they will have the most points by a team in a while The problem for the Lightning will be to keep it interesting. The Lightning are going to have to find a way to keep their focus and go into the playoffs strong. This will be the most difficult thing for the team to stick with. If they can do this they should make the final for sure and then should be able to win. Of course as in any sport. Even a dominate team can get beat. If it did not happen then we would not watch.
NBA Trade Deadline Fallout
The NBA trade deadline has created issues for the NBA and for several teams in the league. With the off season and the trade deadline being more interesting then the games. The NBA now has a basketball problem. As in it really is not not that interesting at this point. Or maybe that is what they are going for. Attempting to get notices all year. Maybe it will work. More likely it will just make the product look even weaker.
The ratings are starting to show this. Last week the Thunder were up against the Pelicans on a Thursday night game on TNT. Granted this is not the most glamorous match up but still you would expect it to pull in some viewers. On TLC their new hit show Dr. Pimple Popper was up against the NBA. TLC and Dr. Pimple Popper won the night. Yes that is right. A zit popping tv show beat the NBA head to head. You can some what give this a pass. The game was on TNT and not the greatest match up. However a few weeks earlier the AAF beat the NBA. This time it was a match up of teams that were both contenders. It was the first game of the AAF and the NBA is in the middle of the season but still. Two groups of football players with no history to go on. Had better ratings than a potential playoff match up for the NBA.
The NBA is still not in any kind of trouble and the ratings dip could just be a blip. The trade deadline mess between the Pelicans and the Lakers did not help. It is not helping that the Warriors keep on winning. The Playoff ratings for the NBA last year were down as well. Guess we will just have to wait and see what happens the rest of the year. If the Lakers make the playoffs that will probably help. Hard to say for sure.
The Road to the Final Four
Not yet. We have a few weeks to go till we get to the tournaments. When we do get to the tournaments they are going to be fantastic. Duke is really looking like the team to beat. They had that great start to the season. They had a little lull. If you can call it that. At least a lull that allowed Tennessee to become the number one ranked team in the country. Everyone knew that they were not but the teams above them had lost and they had not. So it was just the way it was. Gonzaga is the quietest number two in a long time. They are very conveniently running under the radar. Three of the four top seeds for the tournament look like they will be Duke, Virginia and Gonzaga. The fourth one, who knows at this point. Probably either Michigan, Tennessee or Kentucky. Nevada has been quietly moving up. I don’t see them squeaking into a one seed though.
The team that is in a bit of trouble is Michigan State. They have done alright with out Langford. Three of their five losses have come after he was hurt. The Nick Ward injury is what could do them in. They will make it through the first weekend of the tournament. But what are they going to do when the competition gets really difficult. Michigan State has been up against difficult situations before so still don’t count them out. When the injuries start to add up it really does not matter how good the coach is. There are some things that just can’t be over come. It is just a bummer that they lost those players. This is a team that at full force would have done some serious damage in the tournament. They still could but it will be a hard road.
Rain Ruines the Tiger Fest
I dont’ really count the Golf season as started till the end of Marsh as it leads into the Masters. I do tend to keep track of what is going on and flip on a few holes during the weekend. Since it goes all day you can usually catch some just about any time of the day. This past weekend with the crazy weather in California the whole weekend was a mess. With whole rounds getting postponed. Some players have to try and complete as many holes as they could on Saturday and Sunday. They were still not able to complete till Monday. That is the second time they have had to do that so far this year. I have not checked the ratings but even with Tiger back I am sure that they are not very good. It is too difficult to follow. I know not their fault. Just bad luck so it is what it is. At least this is not the fault of Golf like the problems the NBA has caused for itself.
AAF Ok Weekend leading to a bad week
I was able to watch some more of the AAF. It was still some alright football. They were smart to get going before the New XFL. There will only be room for one of those leagues. Not sure which one is going to win that battle. Getting the head start will help. What will not help is missing payroll. How do you start a league and then have no plan to make payroll. That type of thing can not happen again. It really will make the few ok players you have think about moving to a competing league. LOL That just sounds a bit funny since we have not had competing leagues in a long time. The USFL though they were competing with the NFL but we all know that was not a real competition. The other leagues that have come up were not competitors. They were competing for fans but not against another football league. While the AAF and the XFL are not going to be competing against the NFL they will be competing against each other. That will be interesting to see how that goes. I don’t really care which one wins. Lets just hope that the one that does runs a good league and knows that they will basically be the minor leagues for the NFL. That makes me believe that it will not be the XFL. Pretty sure that Vince thinks that he can compete with the NFL. Spoiler – He Can’t.
Television Wrap up
Week two of The Walking Dead was another pleasantly good episode. It is probably too little too late. It was nice to see them actually developing some characters again. In the early years they used to do that very well. A few years ago they forgot about that and though that people were just looking for shock value. By loosing sight of how the got popular they almost killed it. Maybe the can bring it back but more than likely they cannot.
Celebrity Big Brother wrapped up. The mini version of Big Brother with famous people has been pretty interesting. IN the tow seasons that they have had it they did a good job of picking interesting individuals. This year I was really rooting for Tom Green to win. Unfortunately he got a little paranoid and got himself voted out of the game. There was one person in the cast that I really did not like that much. I said from the beginning that I would have been ok with anyone winning but her. So of course Tamar Braxton won it. LOL. I am pretty sure that Tamar and CBS had some kind of agreement and that is why she won. She clearly did not play the best game. But that is the way it goes and watching “reality” shows we fully understand that.
You can read last weeks post here. AS as are getting closer to March things are going to start to get more interesting.
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