A Spaghetti Western Rant Today

Today will be an homage to one of the classic “Spaghetti Westerns”:

• The Good, The Bad And The Ugly.

Starting with “The Good”, the Knicks/Pacers series is still ongoing.  It has been entertaining to date and looks to continue in that mode at least for tomorrow night when Game 6 will happen in Indy.  Last night, the Knicks dominated play and avoided elimination; now they face a second straight elimination game, but this one will be on the road.  The question here is:

• Which team faces more pressure tomorrow night?
• The Knicks who must win to remain in the playoffs?
• The Pacers who should not want to face a “Game7” in Madison Square Garden?
• You make the call…

Now on to “The Bad”.  Overall, things are not hunky-dory for the second season of the UFL; the TV results have not been encouraging.  Consider:

• Average TV audience in 2024 was 816K viewers per game.
• Average TV audience so far in 2025 is 615K viewers per game.
• That is a decline of 24.6% from a level that was not eye-popping in 2024.

If you are inclined to look at the “glass half-full”, there was a TV game on ABC that drew more than 1.2M viewers which is double the season average.  Perhaps  that means there is an audience out there for the UFL product but that the audience is selective in its viewing behavior.  The UFL is a minor league; the top-tier of minor league sports can be very interesting because it approximates the major league product sufficiently well as to be entertaining.  The lower levels of minor league sports are an acquired taste because sometimes those lower-level contests are far removed from the appreciated major league product.

The UFL may be in that situation.  The top teams in the UFL may be able to draw and retain fan interest to a reasonable degree; the bottom teams may have already been “abandoned” by their target audiences.  Let me use the Memphis Showboats as “evidence” that the team has been “abandoned”.

• In 2024, the Showboats were 2-8 with both wins coming over the same opponent.  Unimpressive.  In their 5 home games, the largest crowd was 8,791 fans.
•  In 2025, with one game left to play, the Showboats are 2-7.  They have played four home games; the largest crowd was 4,753 fans and last weekend, the attendance was 2,044.
• Average attendance in Memphis in 2025 is only 3,850 folks who seem to have nothing better to do with their time than showing up at Simmons Bank Liberty Stadium.
• Average attendance for the UFL overall is relatively constant year over year.  Last  year, UFL games drew 13.3K fans and this year they are drawing 12.4K fans.

Perhaps, the UFL gurus need to consider finding a different home for that troubled franchise?  How about Baltimore – – or maybe Tidewater Virginia?

And now on to “The Ugly” – – as if that UFL situation in Memphis was not bad enough …  The so-called “Modern Era” of MLB is taken to begin in 1900.  In the 125 seasons in this “Modern Era” no team has ever had a worse record in the first 50 games than the Colorado Rockies posted in 2025.  Here is where the Rockies stand in terms of stench:

• Cincinnati Red Stockings were 6-44 in 1876
• Louisville Colonels were 7-43 in 1895
• Kansas City Unions were 7-43 in 1884
• Louisville Colonels were 8-42 in 1889  (a repeat offender here)
• Colorado Rockies were 8-42 in 2025.

Here is something one might not suspect given that information above.  The Rockies are nowhere near the bottom of MLB in home attendance; in fact, the Rockies average attendance is 27,621  in 2025.  By comparison the Rockies’ home attendance is:

• Almost triple the attendance for the Rays
• Two-and-a-half times the attendance for the A’s
• More than double the attendance for the Marlins
• Greater than the division-leading Tigers by about 2,500 fans per game.

The 2025 Colorado Rockies are an ugly team having an ugly season, but they have not been abandoned by their fans for reasons that are not clear to me.

Finally, let me close with this line from one of the movies in the so-called “Dollar Trilogy” that always made perfect sense to me:

“When a man with a 45 meets a man with a rifle, the man with a pistol will be a dead man.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………