It's a HUGE culminating week for the NCAA Men's and Women's Tournaments, as the respective Final Fours will take place in San Antonio, TX and Tampa, FL this weekend. And, we're ready to discuss lots about it on the newest "Last Word on Sports Media Podcast."
Host T.J. Rives returns with takes on this past weekend's coverage and of course, some updates on the ratings. First what about the "Cooper Flagg Effect" for Duke helping the CBS/Turner audience numbers? And, just how big will the Saturday night semi in San Antonio with Houston be? T.J. has some thoughts.
He also discusses the women's ratings and the expected dramatic dropoff from the humungous audience last year for Iowa's Caitlin Clark and her games. It's still a solid product on TV for ESPN/ABC, but there's now confrmation for good that Clark meant 4 and 5 times more audience for her games last year. There's more analysis on this.
Then, T.J. talks the start of the MLB season and the coverage on ESPN, the tributes to the late Milwaukee Brewers great broadcaster Bob Uecker and the disastrous first A's game in Sacramento that saw technical problems plague the night for their first game in their temporary home against the Cubs.
Next, a fascinating discussion on the announcers in this year's tourneys and leading to the all-time broadcasters to work a men's Final Four and a look ahead to whom are calling the Final Fours this weekend at the two sites. We do this with Phil de Montmolin, who's a great historian of it all and use to co-host the Announcer Schedules Pod with Mike Gill on this feed. T.J. and Phil reminisce on some great Final Four broadcasting nostalgia of their own, too.
Catch it all on the "LWOS Media Podcast" and make sure to follow/subscribe on Apple/Spreaker/Spotify, etc.!