Rumors Running Rampant for NFL Draft Week
Stories Shaping Sports and Business, Monday April 20th
NFL Draft Week is Here
While team scouts, general managers and coaches have been preparing for the last year for this week’s big event, NFL writers, reporters, and analysts are using the spectacle’s popularity to grab the attention of sport-deprived fans,
Get ready and buckle up because rumors are running rampant. Like all rumors, some lead to actual developments while others deserve little to no attention.
But therein lies the problem. Outside of listening to a handful of trustworthy reporters, it becomes a guessing game as to which rumors actually have some validity. Of course it doesn’t help that teams leak out false reports in hopes of confusing their counterparts in an effort to gain negotiating power.
The 49ers, Falcons, Giants, Jaguars and Patriots have all been rumored to be in active trade talks for players or picks. The good news is all these rumors will come to rest as the NFL Draft kicks off on Thursday, April 23.
E-Sports' Exploding Popularity
The E-Sports industry is absolutely exploding thanks to quarantine and people self-isolating during this global pandemic.
According to a report from Twitch Tracker, there were 2 billion hours of video games streamed on Twitch since the start of the pandemic. The average concurrent viewers jumped from 1.6 million on March 1 to 2.7 million on April 19.
Professional sports leagues like the NBA and MLB are jumping in on the e-sports hype. The MLB partnered with Twitch to stream an MLB The Show tournament featuring players from all 30 Major League teams.
With no sports on TV, the trend of watching people play video games is going to continue to reach all-time highs.
A Coronavirus Update and a Look at Oil
There are more than 2.4 million cases of the coronavirus worldwide, with over 167,000 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins. There are over 760,000 cases in the U.S., with over 35,000 deaths. New York has 242,000 cases, with over 13,000 deaths. Spain has over 200,000 cases, with over 20,000 deaths. And Italy has over 181,000 cases with over 24,000 deaths.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that 478 people died in New York in the past day, which is the lowest single-day death toll in over two weeks.
The markets are being driven lower in intraday trading by oil. The U.S. oil contract plunged 300% before closing, settling at a negative $37 a barrel. This is the first time in history that oil has gone negative. This drop is caused by traders selling the nearest oil futures contract, which expires Tuesday. The root cause of this is due to the slump in demand because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Note: This segment was filmed before the U.S. Oil May contract closed down negative $37.
TheStreet's Katherine Ross contributed to this report.
