Morning friends. Back to life, back to reality.
As you read this, we are somewhere driving back to ChattaVegas. Good time at the lake. (Hiccup.)
Power of connection
OK, we have enough TV data to make one pretty clear conclusion a lead-pipe fact and another thought into a pretty clear conclusion.
First, there is no debating that the Tiger factor is real and it is great for the game of golf. His presence - and contention - at his own tournament last weekend boosted it to a six-year-ratings high.
In today's sagging TV market, that's huge. In fact, according to Sports Media Watch, Woods has played golf 20 times on television this year and 19 of them had ratings increases from the previous year. The lone exception was the final round of The Memorial that was broadcast on tape delay because of bad weather.
Last Sunday's numbers (2.3 rating, up 92 percent; 3.58 million viewers, up 89 percent) were robust despite Francesco Molinari winning the event by eight shots.
As for the other, well, the numbers are in for the group stage of the World Cup and our belief that this event is every bit as much about patriotism as it is about the soccer explosion seems pretty fair.
Fox and FS1 have averaged 1.92 million viewers for the group stage matches. That number is down 39 percent from 2014 when ABC and the ESPN channels averaged 3.15 million. If you take out the bigger numbers four years ago when the U.S. was playing - numbers so big that they could skew the average, the ratings are still down 27 percent.
So, there were 12 percent of that 3.15 million in '14 watching simply because it was the Red, White and Blue. And then more than a quarter of the audience from four years ago lost interest without the U.S.
Not exactly an exclamation point on the soccer takeover. And those numbers are almost double the expected slide without the U.S. considering that Fox had already pledge an extra 20 percent of air time to advertisers when the U.S. failed to make the draw.
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Braves' big stretch
After dropping two of three in the Bronx to the Yankees, the Atlanta Braves head to Milwaukee.
New York Yankees shortstop Didi Gregorius tries to leap over Atlanta Braves' Ender Inciarte while attempting to turn a double play during the first inning of a baseball game, Wednesday, July 4, 2018, in New York. Inciarte was out at second. Freddie Freeman was safe at first. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)It's pretty fair to say this is a four-game series between easily the two biggest surprises in baseball, right?
Either way, these Braves breathed a huge sigh of relief late Wednesday after a July 4th loss to New York.
Sure, no one likes to lose, but the good vibes were that Freddie Freeman says he's fine after being hit in the elbow by C.C. Sabathia.
Simply put, Freeman is the frontrunner for N.L. MVP right now. Look at the numbers beyond the fact that he leads the N.L. in all-star voting:
Dude is hitting .308 with 16 homers, has the second-best on-base percentage in the league at .399 and a top-10 slugging number at .530 while playing a Gold Glove-caliber first.
And he's doing it for the team with the second-best record in the National League.
The team with the best record in the N.L.? Yep, those Milwaukee Brewers.
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More deep breaths in Georgia
The headline is way worse than the story.
"UGA quarterback Jake Fromm breaks hand in boating accident" certainly generated a lot of clicks and more than a few July 4th headaches for Dawg Nation.
Georgia quarterback Jake Fromm (11) takes the field to warm up before the College Football Playoff national championship against Alabama at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Monday, Jan. 8, 2018 in Atlanta, Ga.But, it's a fracture in Fromm's left - non-throwing - hand - and Kirby Smart said Fromm's already back throwing. (That said, since Fromm also had a hospital trip after having a fishing hook removed from his leg this offseason, here's betting Smart tells Fromm to stay away from the open water until the season kicks off.)
Still, if anyone should know the star-to-substitute potential an injury can provide it's Fromm, who became the Georgia starter after former five-star recruit Jacob Eason was hurt in last year's opener.
Enter Fromm, who never relinquished the QB job. And exit Eason, who transferred to Washington.
If Fromm can't go or misses drills, five-star stud duck Justin Fields is waiting for a chance too.
(Man, Georgia has a load of talent, right?)
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This and that
- Speaking of college football, wow the Westgate odds that were released earlier this week, Alabama is a 7-to-4 pick to win it all. Yes, the Tide is better than a 2-to-1 pick to win the national title. Nuts.
- Speaking of TV numbers, we have often discussed the struggles of NASCAR today's TV realm. Well, the LPGA is right there with staggering numbers. Scary, in fact. Sunday, going against the World Cup and a PGA event that had Tiger in the top five, the Women's PGA Championship - the sport's third major of the season - was down 26 percent in ratings (from a 0.6 to a 0.44) and 25 percent in viewers (from 840,000 to 630,000).
- Speaking of the Brewers, meet my new favorite MLB player. Nate Orf. Orf hit a game-winning homer Wednesday. It was his first big-league hit. It came in his third big-league game and six years after he was signed as an undrafted free agent. How undrafted? Well, when he got the call from the Brewers he was offered $1,000 signing bonus and told the scout, he'd sign for a Snickers bar. The Brewers then offered him $500 and he took it without anymore wise cracks. His teammates carried him on the field for a curtain call after Wednesday's homer. Cool story.
- This is cool. Leonard Fournette has offered to pick up there best of the tuition check for an LSU senior who pleaded for help on Twitter.
- Thought this was interesting - and somewhat surprising. ESPN went back and looked at all the sports that have professional drafts, developed a scoring system and looked at which schools had the most success in producing draftable athletes in the last 10 years. Your winner? UNC. For those wondering, Alabama had far and away the most football picks but did not crack the top 25 in total draft success.
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Today's question
On this day in 1994 Amazon.com was founded. That may turn out to make a dime or three for Jeff Bezos.
In 1946, the bikini debuted at a Paris fashion show.
Dolly the sheep, the first cloned mammal was born (or produced maybe) on this day in 1996.
Ted Williams died on this day in 2002.
Shohei Ohtani is 24 today. Yes, the arm injury has turned Ohtani - the first two-way player in the modern-era of the MLB - into only a hitter for the time being and maybe the rest of the season. It also derailed the best story in the game for the first two months of the year.
But his numbers are still pretty awesome. He's hitting .280 with six homers in 118 at-bats with a .878 OPS. He was 4-1 with a 3.10 ERA and 61 Ks in 49.1 innings.
In his honor, let's do the Rushmore of MLB players not born in the U.S.
Go and remember the mailbag, friends.