Traina Thoughts: List of 2017's most-watched sporting events shows NFL's dominance
The best of the Internet, plus musings by SI.com writer, Jimmy Traina.
1. We all know this is an NFL world and we're just living in it, but just how much does this country love all things football? SportsMediaWatch.com has published a list of the top 50 sporting events of 2017 and the top 10 slots are all NFL games. The first non-NFL event on the list is the Clemson-Alabama national college football national championship game, which comes in at No. 11. Other takeaways from the Top 50:
• The MLB All-Star Game (9.3 million), NBA All-Star Game (7.8 million) and Pro Bowl (7.5 million) all scored higher than Game 6 of the NHL Stanley Cup Final between Pittsburgh and Nashville (7 million).
• The MLB Home Run Derby (8.5 million) almost had as many viewers as the MLB All-Star Game and topped the NBA All-Star Game and Pro Bowl.
• The first non-football or non-basketball event on the list is the Kentucky Derby at No. 24.
• The Cowboys-Packers divisional playoff game (48.5 million) rated higher than the AFC (48 million) and NFC (46.3 million) championship games.
• Game 7 of the 2016 Cubs-Indians World Series had 40 million viewers. It would've ranked No. 5 overall on the 2017 list.
2. Todd Frazier got off to little bit of a rough start with Yankees fans this morning after being traded from Chicago last night.
3. Timberlwolves star Karl-Anthony Towns used his excellent NBA2K18 rating (91) to mock Joel Embiid, who is very unhappy about his number in the video game.
4. Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal, who has been forced to put his columns and breaking news on Facebook (of all the horrible places on the Internet) because FoxSports.com only wants bad videos on its website, still has a good sense of humor, despite the bad work situation. He's even able to laugh about the classic "fake sportswriter twitter account" move that he was the victim of earlier this week.
5. We told you yesterday that you can place bets on whether O.J. Simpson will be paroled tomorrow. You may want to adjust your wager if this story is true.
6. Poor Mark Sanchez is known only for the butt fumble, but on this #NationalHotDogDay, we remember another memorable moment from the quarterback.
7. Nobody should want to work out this much.
8. RANDOM WRESTLING VIDEO OF THE DAY: It's always memorable when things in the WWE go off script. That's what happened at the 2005 Royal Rumble when Vince McMahon tore both of his quads while running to the ring.
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