USA Today reviews the weekend’s sports and ratings:
The Notre Dame football brand, despite losses in 10 of the team’s last 12 bowl games, can still get off the mat. ND’s overtime win against Stanford drew a 3.9 overnight rating, translating to 3.9% of households in the 56 urban markets measured for overnights — the weekend’s top college football overnight. Read more
How do you explain a 2-2 team, banned from postseason play, having their fifth consecutive game covered on national TV?
via Penn State Football: Are ESPN and ABC Exploiting PSUs Scandal Woes? | Bleacher Report. Read more
Carroll Hoff “Beano” Cook died Wednesday at the age of 81. You’ll hear some mention of his passing this weekend, but probably not enough.
Very simply, college football would not be what it is today without Beano Cook. Read more
Just look at the price consumers must pay for ESPN, the leader in sports programming. It charges the most on a per-subscriber basis of any channel, which makes the baseball deal worrisome for some operators.
As Matthew Polka, president of the American Cable Association — a trade group representing small and mid-sized companies — recently put it in a press release:
“The plain truth is that these MLB deals will send monthly pay-TV bills streaking skyward. Read more
Last night’s event – the second consecutive “Social Media Derby” during which players were able to use social media live from the field during the State Farm Home Run Derby – generated 804,337 total Twitter and public Facebook comments, more than twice the volume (+158%) than last year’s Derby (312,117), based on data from Bluefin Labs. Read more
