Martin Luther King, Jr. And Benjamin Franklin

In addition to today as a celebration of the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, January 17^th is also the birthday of Benjamin Franklin.  So, as a remembrance of Ben Franklin, if someone annoys you today, just tell them to go fly a kite.

Speaking of annoyances, why is it that some folks cannot/will not admit they were wrong with previously stated extrapolations of facts?  Everyone makes mistakes – – particularly me.  One of these days soon, I will revisit my NFL pre-season projections for every team and point out where I was right – – and importantly – – where I was dead wrong.  The potential for error is significant when trying to predict the future.  So, if/when someone sets out on that path, they need to admit when they are wrong.

About 5 years ago the NFL’s TV ratings took a hit; those ratings had been monotonically increasing for years but then they took a dive.  In a rush to find an explanation for that circumstance, more than a few “insiders” and “pundits” took the position that this was a sign that the public’s fascination with the NFL was leveling off because of the dangers of CTE to the players.  Some even suggested that at some future date down the road, there would not be enough players willing to play pro football because their mothers would not allow them to play as youngsters.

Well, over the last 5 years or so, the NFL’s TV ratings have rebounded and the numbers are now available for the Calendar Year 2021:

1. Of the 100 TV programs with the largest viewing audience in 2021, 91 of them were NFL games.
2. The average NFL game audience was 17.1 million people.  That average includes meaningless games involving two bad teams that drew miniscule audiences.
3. The TV audience for the Oscars Award Program in 2021 was 9.2 million people – – about half the average NFL game.
4. On Christmas Day, the NFL and the NBA had games on at the same time.  The Browns/Packers game drew 28.6 million viewers; the Lakers/Nets game drew 5.8 million viewers.
5. Game 6 of last year’s World Series drew a TV audience of 11.8 million viewers which is only 70% of the audience for the average NFL game.
6. The early Thanksgiving Day game this year featured the Lions (0-9-1 at the time) versus the Bears (3-7-0 at the time).  That utterly meaningless game between two bad teams had an audience of 28.2 million people.

So, for all the folks who saw CTE as a surefire harbinger of doom for the NFL and for football itself, what have you to say now?  What happened to that narrative drumbeat over the past 5 years – – other than the suggestion that some of the data offered up by some of the “researchers” were interpreted in a highly subjective fashion?

I have no idea what the long term future of the NFL is if you take “long term” to mean 25-50 years.  However, I am confident that the NFL will survive as a business entity so long as it can deliver that many eyeballs to its broadcasts on a reliable basis.  The revenue from those broadcasts is mainly what allows approximately 2000 NFL players to share in a wage pool that is close to $6B – – and that monetary incentive will likely assure the NFL a deep pool of willing and able players.

Changing lanes here a bit, it appears that ESPN is going to try to create a Sunday Night Baseball version of the MannningCast.  Readers here know that I love the ManningCasts because Peyton and Eli bring knowledge, humor, fun and a measure if irreverence to the presentation.  They are different and they are fun to watch because of their personalities and their relationship to each other.  Replicating that would be difficult under any circumstances.

What ESPN seems to have planned is to pair Michael Kay and Alex Rodriguez in the roles of Peyton and Eli Manning.  As I said above, it is difficult to predict the future, but when I put those two in juxtaposition in my head, my first response to the suits at ESPN would be:

• Good luck with that!

Michael Kay has been doing  Yankees’ telecasts on the YES Network for about 20 years and was part of the Yankees’ radio broadcast team for several years before that.  He is a bit of a “homer” – – but that is to be expected given the platform from which he does his job.  I will assume that he can shed that perspective particularly when ESPN has him doing his “faux-ManningCast games” involving the Yankees.  That is only part of Michael Kay’s challenge.  Can he be witty as the “top-banana” in the act or as the foil in the act?  I have never heard/seen that side of his personality; I think it could be a step hill to climb.

A-Rod on the other hand has indicated to me that he is more than willing to be critical of plays and players on the field; he has even been critical of pitchers and their play even though I cannot find any pitching stats for A-Rod at baseball-reference.com.  And if you find A-Rod as “witty” or “light-hearted” in his broadcast persona, then you and I have very different definitions of those terms.  The Mannings are critical of certain players and specific plays; to my ears, A-Rod is not merely critical, he is didactic.  That is fine once in a while, but didactic can become annoying if it is not used sparingly.

I wish no evil on ESPN; that network and its sister networks provide me with plenty of entertainment and information.  Nevertheless, my guess is that this experiment in game presentation is not going to be nearly as successful as the ManningCasts have been.  We shall see…

Finally let me close today with words from both Dr., Martin Luther King and Benjamin Franklin:

“Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.” [Dr. King]

And …

“Well done is better than well said.” [Dr. Franklin]

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