Sunday Drafting

As I opened up an internet window this morning, I was confronted with "10 reasons to watch the Daytona 500", which apparently is today. I don't believe I've ever watched more than 3 or 4 consecutive minutes of any NASCAR race in my life, and would absolutely consider myself someone who does not believe that racing cars should ever be considered a sport.

However, it seems that I am in a shrinking segment of America's sports-crazed population. What will be interesting to watch this "season" is the effect that NASCAR's return to ESPN will have. People may love or hate ESPN - or experience both emotions simultaneously- but no one can deny ESPN's importance in the American sports universe. ESPN in some ways, is the ultimate Gatekeeper, to borrow a term from 7th grade journalism class, and what it decides is cool, interesting or important gets the bulk of its coverage/hype. Of course, what ESPN is broadcasting (and thus drawing ratings) plays a large part in the head honchos in Bristol deciding what sports and events they should hype.

The NHL is a perfect example. The league that no one (south of Pittsburgh at least) noticed go on strike 3 winters ago, lost their contract with ESPN, and since the rebirth of the league, has struggled to regain a foothold in the national sports scene. Relegated to the VS. network, a channel that reaches approximately a third of the homes that ESPN does, it is doomed to the nether regions of cable, surrounded in basic cable packages by The Food Channel 2 and The Trading Spaces Channel, while ESPN sits between regional sports stations and CNN. I'm a huge hockey fan, and even I forget to check VS to see if games are on. It's a problem. When ESPN had a vested interest in the league, they were more concerned with promoting it. While the channel is at least showing highlights again on SportsCenter, they continue to make it seem like every NHL fan is akin to Barry Melrose, whose hair only gets worse with time. Try out this SAT analogy. Barry Melrose:NHL::Sean Salsibury:NFL.

Recently, much ado was made about how few viewers tuned in to the NHL All-Star game, which was moved to a mid-week affair in hopes of gaining some attention, rather than getting drowned out in college basketball hoopla. The move made little sense, seeing that Saturday night has been a traditional hockey venue, and honestly, who really is going to go out of their way on a Wednesday evening to check out ANY all-star game? It was estimated that only around 620,000 US households tuned into VS/CBC, compared to the roughly 37 million that tuned in American Idol during the 9pm time slot. The ratings failed in comparison with the roughly 2 million households that took in the 2000 NHL All-Star game in Toronto which took place on a Sunday afternoon. Hmmm...imagine that, more people were interested in watching hockey on a Sunday afternoon as opposed to a mid-week school night. All the NHL needed to do was market the game on NBC as a replacement for Sunday afternoon football (aka the NFL, aka the most highly watched sports programming in the history of man). Viewers are already used to habitually turning on the tube Sunday afternoon and trolling for sports from September to February. On the first Sunday since September 11 without professional sports programming, why not hold the NHL All-Star Game, rather than holding it on a weekday hump night, going up against American Idol.

Saturday night the NBA held their dunk competition in Las Vegas, which appears to being billed as the "coolest thing to ever happen - since Super Bowl XLI". I watched a bit of the festivities, and while I honestly didn't recognize the names of any of the dunk contest participants (sorry, I live in Buffalo!) I did think that the NBA did a nice job of catering to the casual fan. The names participating in the contest may not have captivated my attention, but the judges sure did. Sitting a table just inside the half-court line were MJ, Dr. J, Dominique Wilkins, Charles Barkley and Kobe Bryant. Even I knew who all these people are. More importantly, with a bunch of hall-of-famers (and 1 rapist) doing the judging, dressed up in flashy sport coats, the NBA limited the amount of ghetto towel tossing and reactions by judges who can't quite figure out if they just watched a dunk or just realized they were standing on hot coals. This means that people who really could care less about the NBA, and think a bunch of "punks" play in the league, could stand to watch. I watched for almost 30 minutes, saw a number of cool dunks, heard a decent argument over who the best dunker to ever play was, and didn't see Stephen A Smith once. It was a good night.

Tonight, the NBA All-Star game will take place, and I'm sure there will be people who compare the ratings to the NHL game, and then I'll have to listen to Colin Cowherd talk about how dead the NHL is. You know what? I could care less. The NHL All-Star game received a 7.1 ratings share in Buffalo, and was the most watched program on cable that night. I guarantee that the ratings for the NHL All-Star game will trump the NBA game, despite the NBA game taking place on a Sunday night, as opposed to a Wednesday.

Unless of course, the Daytona 500 runs long.