Joel Bulkley
Numbers are a big part of sports and sports news.
Here are some from last week. The first UNC/Duke men’s basketball game (Smith Center) had a record 3.5M viewers and peaked at 4.8M on ESPN. That’s up 53 percent from game one last year and the most for any ESPN hoops game in four years, Nielsen reported. GameDay was there for the 13th time. Game 2 is March 7 at Cameron.
The Duke Chronicle outraised the Daily Tar Heel, $79,834 to $66,7812, during this year’s Battle of the Blues. But the DTH, which won two of three hoops games over Chronicle staffers this year, raised $18,000 more this year than last. The two papers have raised more than $700,000 in eight years and jointly produced a giant pre-game issue this year.
Overall, only two Black Friday hoops games on Fox had more viewers–Duke/Arkansas (6.8M) and UNC/Michigan State (6.5M), according to on3.com.
The Super Bowl was big, but apparently not a record-breaker with an audience of 124.9M for the game, 128.2M for Bad Bunny halftime show. One reason it didn’t exceed last year’s figures probably was that NBC’s streaming channel Peacock is more expensive than Fox’s Sports Live.
YouTube TV offers a $65/month sports-focused package, rather than the $83 deal previously offered, The Athletic reported.
Netflix drama “The 99ers” will recount the USWNT’s winning the 1999 FIFA World Cup in Los Angeles, directed by Nicole Kassell. People We Meet on Vacation star Emily Bader will play Mia Hamm. The film could debut late in 2026. The women’s success ignited tremendous growth in women’s sports in the U.S.
Have read good things about Julius Erving’s four-part series “Soul Power: The Legend of the American Basketball Association” on Amazon Prime. It’s supposed to be more than highlight clips of Dr. J from the 60s. Shows are one hour each.
President Trump orders TV networks to “protect” the Army-Navy football date (second Saturday of December on CBS) from competition by other games. He issued an executive order amid concerns that college football playoffs could expand.
Trump’s also involved in public golf in Washington, D.C., where his administration ended leases for three public courses held by The National Links Trust, a nonprofit. He’s never played the courses.
The Washington Post shut down the paper’s sports section and staff amid mass layoffs. The section was considered the gold standard and pushed women’s sports behind strong writing by talented women writers. A number of former Raleigh writers/editors were among those losing their jobs.
Tampa Bay’s baseball broadcasts will be produced and distributed by MLB this season as the FanDuel Sports Net baseball gets shakier by the week. MLB is now doing broadcasts for more than a dozen teams.
Good stuff. Rebecca Love is having one of those years of a lifetime. She hosts EPL soccer on NBC, is working on the Winter Olympics and will join Fox for the World Cup this summer.
The Athletic had an interesting story on how TV networks deal with injuries like skier Lindsay Vonn, soccer players, car wrecks during live telecasts.
The old story was if it’s Monday morning and a 60 Minutes crew is at your front door, take the week off. Now it’s the “Pablo Torre Finds Out” podcast. Pablo S. Torre’s an investigative reporter with a staff of about a dozen. His Jordon Hudson and LA Clippers/Kawhi Leonard stories rang the bell. He’s worked for ESPN, SI and others. You can find them on YouTube.
The Pro Bowl’s Tuesday night flag game was a bust (nobody watched) but flag football is coming. Nebraska will be the first D1program with women’s flag football as a varsity sport.
Meanwhile, two pro volleyball leagues are competing to follow the WNBA into our homes.
Not only did the Indy not endorse candidates in the March primary, but they didn’t have a single story on Orange Co. candidates in the primary guide print edition. Sitting out the election might be considered a copout but a bunch of previously backed local candidates were anything but progressive.