I was forwarded an article from Nielsen today, and I think with the end of 2008 approaching, it would be the perfect time to look at some of the amazing ratings across all Sports last year. Not only did MNF give us the most watched cable program of the year with the Cowboys-Eagles earlier this season, but Golf, the Olympics and the Super Bowl all had record breaking numbers as well. Here are some of the numbers via Nielsen....

-The most-watched global event ever (2008 Beijing Summer Olympics: 4.7 billion viewers)

-The most-watched Super Bowl ever (Giants-Patriots, Super Bowl XLII: 97.5 million viewers)

-The most-watched cable broadcast of all time (Cowboys-Eagles, Monday Night Football: 18.6 million viewers)

-The most-watched cable golf event of all time (Tiger vs. Rocco, U.S. Open Playoff: 4.8 million viewers)

-The most-watched cable baseball game ever (Red Sox-Rays, ALCS Game 7: 13.4 million viewers)

-The most-watched NBA Finals in five years (Celtics-Lakers, NBA Championship Series average: 14.9 million viewers)

-The most-watched NHL regular season game in nine years; most-watched finals in five years (Winter Classic: 2.5 million viewers; Stanley Cup, Penguins–Red Wings average: 4.5 million viewers)

-The most-watched Wimbledon final in eight years (Federer-Nadal: 5.2 million viewers)

-Ratings for sports events are 20% higher in homes with high-definition TV sets vs. total U.S.

-75 million people visited sports websites in October 2008

-11.6 million unique users logged more than 1.2 billion minutes on fantasy sports sites in 2008

-10.6 million U.S. mobile subscribers accessed sports content via the mobile Web in August 2008

Just an amazing collection of events throughout the past year, and as the ratings company also pointed out, it can be contributed to a wealth of different factors. In my opinion the main ones to consider are the actual game storylines as well the breadth of HD programming in every Sport. I'd expect the Bowl Games this Holiday Season to follow suit and we should be able to say by mid-January that this was the most watched Sports year ever.

Be sure to check out the full PDF report if you have time. There's a lot of interesting thoughts in there as well.

2008 A Banner Year in Sports? (Nielsen)

Local Tampa channel 28 will be making an interesting call by choosing to air the Monday Night Football game between the Bucs and Panthers. It's not interesting because of the game itself (although it should be a good one), but rather for the programs that the game will pre-empted. The channel was scheduled to play, and thus will be skipping the season finale of Boston Legal, and the holiday classic, "Charlie Brown Christmas." Via TampaBay.com....

Corporate cousin ESPN allows ABC affiliates to also air MNF games featuring hometown teams for area fans who don't get cable or satellite. Station officials made the decision to pick up the game months ago, before they could have known ABC's plans, said Rich Pegram, WFTS general manager.

Fortunately, the good folks at WFTS have come up with a solution. ABC will air the Charlie Brown Christmas on Tuesday, Dec. 16 at 8 p.m. WFTS will move the two-hour Boston Legal finale to Sunday, Dec. 14 at 4 p.m. If you're online, you can see the Boston Legal finale on ABC.com the day after it airs nationally, on Tuesday, Dec. 9.

Good grief! Well at least they scheduled a makeup airing, right? Thank goodness and everyone can rest easy tonight.

Ch. 28 picks up Buccaneers game Monday (TampaBay.com)

The Sporting Blog came across a funny and yet somewhat disturbing poll on the pages of Fox Sports this afternoon that I wanted to share. Let's have some fun with sexual innuendo!


It's odd to me that this whole Sean Avery situation has become so polarizing in the MSM community. The comments seemed bad enough to the AP that they wouldn't even use the term "sloppy seconds" in their article, but FOX Sports just went to town with their poll. It's not enough that Cuthbert was probably pretty embarrassed by this, but now a nationally recognized website is rubbing it in. Tsk tsk, Fox.

FOX Sports Has Fun With Sexual Innuendos (The Sporting Blog)

(Usually) Everyday I'll throw out a photo, you provide the caption, and then hilarity ensues. I'm also adding a handful of links at the bottom of the page that you should check out each day.

Yesterday's Winners....


"Yeah, this is Eli Manning just calling to remind you that I'm still UNSTOPPABLE!!!"- G-Money

"Why yes, my refrigerator is running. Why do you ask?"- Jay

"...ok I'm at the stadium now, I have to go, bye....you didn't hang up either! ...no you hang up...you hang up, ok, I'm going to hang up now...ahhhhh you didn't hang up either...ok...ok...bye bye Pey Pey."- Bambi

"No dad, I'm dead serious, THE L.L. Bean! They want me to be their spokesman! They just sent me all this neat-o stuff like a beige collared sweatshirt, this is the way better than the Citizen sponsorship."- Anon

"Movie quote."- Anon

Okay, okay....I get the point. Movie quotes are officially banned for a little while.
_______________________________________

Are you funny enough to create a caption for this photo of Lebron James being introduced before the Cavs game against the Knickerbockers last night?


Daily Links:

Someone Found The Only House With Cable And Without ESPN (North Jefferson News)
NESN Needs To Know Its Role (Sox & Dawgs)
Dwight Howard Will Crush You! (Ball Don't Lie)
Best X-Mas Toy Ever (With Leather)
Riot! (Unprofessional Foul)
We're Already Through The First Month Of College Basketball (I'm Writing Sports)
What Does Your Favorite Player Want For Christmas? (Food Court Lunch)
BCS Coaching Trivia (Simon on Sports)
Make Your NFL Fine Worth It (Money Shot)
Adriana Lima Is Still Engaged To This Guy.... (Rumors and Rants)

I mentioned the other day that the NFL is showing tonight's Thursday Night Football game in fabulous 3-D at a few movie theaters around the Country. More specifically at establishments in Los Angeles, New York and Boston. Well today, Pro Football Talk is saying that sources within the Raiders' organization are a little bit perturbed that the NFL didn't give the team the opportunity to promote a Bay Area screening....

The selected locales made sense; the company that created the technology is located in L.A., the league office is located in New York, and the game is being played in San Diego.

As we hear it, however, the Raiders felt a bit left out, since a screening of the game in the Bay Area would have been a great way for the organization to engender goodwill with current local sponsors, potential local sponsors, and folks who plunk down big money each year for luxury suites at home games.

Actually, it would have made even more sense for the 3D version of the game to be shown in Oakland instead of San Diego, since the actual version of the game will be played in San Diego, and the folks whom the Chargers could be schmoozing at the theater will be at, you know, the football stadium.

If you delve even deeper into the most recent AP story on the subject, they note that a handful of other owners will attend the screenings. Minnesota Vikings owner Zygi Wilf, New York Giants co-owner John Mara, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson and Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, will be in NYC. Robert Kraft will be in Boston for the game tonight.

While I, like many, am not a fan of the Raiders organization, I have to agree with them on this one. Not only is it unfair to have other owners at the events, and not anyone from the teams involved, I think the NFL is missing a great opportunity to promote one of the league's lesser teams at the moment.

With the Raiders alienating their fans on almost a daily basis, this would have been the perfect time to hype a floundering team that currently sits at 3-9. Oh well.

Raiders Fume About 3-D Diss (PFT)
The NFL To Experiment With 3-D Technology During NFL Network's Thursday Night Football Game (Awful Announcing)

Darren Rovell at CNBC noticed during the FSU-Florida game this past Saturday that the team of Nessler, Griese and Maguire had a "Did You Know?" that said that Florida State and not U of F was actually credited with inventing the Sports Drink Gatorade. Being extremely confused, since he wrote an entire book on the subject, Rovell set out to find the truth and these were his findings....

Neither had Dr. Dana Shires, one of Gatorade’s four inventors, who was actually watching the game at the time. “Of course I’ve never heard of it,” Shires said. “It’s just another stupid stunt from the guys at Florida State.”

If I were a researcher for ABC, I doubt I would go with that story after I found only 41 hits for “Seminole firewater.” Or after the doctor who supposedly invented the stuff—an R.A. Johnson —only came up when this “Seminole firewater” was referenced.

The story probably came from a jokester who put it up on Wikipedia. Then, a site called the history of branding, which doesn’t even exist anymore, put it on their site and then it hit all the message boards and voila–a creation becomes a fact.

The University of Florida is so concerned about this new revelation that they are supposed to issue a press release later today, perhaps to quell what has become the hottest new smack talk in Florida.

I don't know who works at the ABC Football research department, but there has to be something more to the reason why they chose to say that on-air. I mean it's widely known that Florida is credited with the invention, so I'd love to hear why they went with Florida State in that moment. Very odd, and it'll be interesting if anything more comes of this.

Ok, What's All This About FSU "Inventing" Gatorade? (CNBC: Sports Biz)

Could it be possible that ESPN has two....count them....two employees who only work on-air for Hockey segments? Well according to the Dallas Morning News, via Going Five Hole, that's exactly what the "Leader" will do when they decide to give Barry Melrose his job back following his recent firing from the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Looks like Barry Melrose, fired after 16 games in his return to coaching this season, is moving back to Bristol. I think this is breaking news. I don't know because I seldom recognize it.

Melrose worked 12 years as an ESPN hockey analyst after coaching the Los Angeles Kings. The Tampa Bay Lightning thought so much of his work, it hired him to coach the team this season. That gig lasted about one-fifth of a season. Melrose's new ESPN deal is for three years.

Well that's nice that in this economy, Melrose has a spot reserved for him at his former employer. In all seriousness, if anyone is going to work with new hire Matthew Barnaby on the network, it has to be Melrose. He's an ESPN staple at this point, so welcome back, Barry.

In other hockey news, Sean Avery has issued an apology for his remarks, but will unlikely be staying with the Stars. Here is his statement on the matter....

"I would like to sincerely apologize for my off-color remarks to the press yesterday from Calgary. I should not have made those comments and I recognize that they were inappropriate. It was a bad attempt to build excitement for the game, but I am now acutely aware of how hurtful my actions were. I caused unnecessary embarrassment to my peers as well as people I have been close with in the past. I apologize for offending the great fans of the NHL, the Commissioner, my teammates, my coaching staff and the Dallas Stars Management and Ownership. As many of you know, I like to mix it up on and off the ice from time to time, but understand that this time I took it too far."

Sean Avery Apologizes (Dallas Observer)
Barry Melrose headed back to ESPN (Dallas Morning News)
Barry Melrose Headed Back to ESPN (Going Five Hole)