What’s the buzz from the world of sports? Here are some items that will have people talking:
1
Week 1 of the NFL usually proves that going 4-0 in the preseason doesn’t mean a whole lot.
For that matter, neither does 0-4.
The two teams of which we speak are the Seahawks and Jets.
Case 1: The Seahawks won all their preseason games, and didn’t look all that bad doing it.
Then came Sunday at Arizona and it wasn’t exactly a fine-tuned product lead by rookie QB Russell Wilson. But they did come close.
Case 2: The Jets lost all their preseason games and deserved it. Then came Sunday and the schedule gods handed the Jets a gift in the Bills (who also went 0-4).
The end result was a big Jets win and the Bills wondering where the great start of 2011 was.
For the record, the Eagles were 4-0 in the preseason and stole a win from the Browns, and the 0-4 preseason Dolphins took some hard knocks in their opening loss to the Texans.
2
As the Pac-12 Networks get its footing among the satellite subscribers (Dish came on board Saturday), Talking Points wonders if all these conference networks are helping or hurting viewership of college football.
We understand being on TV brings in money for the schools.
And everyone likes to have their team on TV even if it is on a fifth-tier sub-channel.
Networks, however, do like ratings because ratings attract advertisers. That’s why ABC, CBS, NBC, and ESPN tend to appeal to the widest audiences when choosing games so the ratings are decent. The others cable networks are rather localized, so ratings are likely smaller.
More and more specialized conference networks create more choices for football fans (which is good) but doesn’t necessarily translate into big ratings for the networks (which is bad).
Bottom line: We can’t watch everything, but we will be paying for it.
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