Good morning, all! It’s hump day!
I have a potpourri of topics on the above video commentary, from the CFP semifinals, to the slow-moving baseball free agent market to why the Yankees need to say enough, when it comes to Clay Bellinger. Enjoy!
Here are some other thoughts on a winter’s day:
John Harbaugh is out as coach of the Baltimore Ravens, after 18 years on the job. The move is not all that surprising, as the Ravens have had their ups-and-downs in recent seasons. The Ravens probably did Harbaugh a favor by dismissing him. With a solid resume, including a win over his brother Jim in Super Bowl 47, and six other head coach vacancies, he can have his pick, if he wants to continue being an NFL coach.
Although Giants fans will be salivating over the chance to snag Harbaugh as their next head coach, do not be so sure that is where he will end up. You could actually witness a team fire a head coach thought to be safe - such as the Jets Aaron Glenn - to hire Harbaugh. This will be a fascinating story to watch.
This NASCAR story is fascinating. Now the commissioner quits. Steve Phelps is stepping down at month’s end, as nasty text exchanges between Phelps and RCR team owner and former driver Richard Childress come to light. Talk about a car wreck.
Speaking of lawsuits, Dish Network has filed a doozy against Disney. At issue, one of my biggest complaints, when it comes to cable-TV. In the words of the lawsuit: Disney requires Dish to pay “hundreds. of millions of dollars in excess fees for content that Dish’s customers do not watch.” Disney, of course, owns ESPN. If Dish wins this suit, the entire house of cards on which sports on television is built, could come crashing down.
Not all NFL games are ratings winners. The Dec. 27 game between the Green Bay Packers and Baltimore Ravens, shown solely on NBC’s streaming service, Peacock, attracted 9.72M viewers and a 3.8 rating. Now most sports would do jumping jacks and cartwheels over those numbers, but I am thinking many people - me included - were not going to take out a Peacock subscription to watch a regular season NFL game. In my case, I would not take out a streaming subscription to watch a playoff game, with the exception of PRIME, which has Packers-Bears on Saturday night. Of course, a PRIME subscription comes with an Amazon membership. And do not bet against Amazon removing that perk at some point.
That is going to do it for today’s newsletter. Thank you for subscribing and have a wonderful Wednesday.
DAN
