Minnesota Tim celebrates the podcast's milestone of over 200,000 listens and discusses the contrasting ratings of the NFL and NBA during the Christmas season. He highlights the NFL's dominance in viewership and critiques the NBA's declining ratings. Tim also delves into the Minnesota Vikings' luck this season, he mentions that we don't need to be apologetic about it, but it is a reality we should recognize.
Welcome into the show today. You get a double dose of Minnesota tim on this Friday afternoon or wherever you're listening to this or watching this show today. Thank you for tuning in. Hit that subscribe button right there, and thank you for making this podcast a part of your day and for going on this incredible journey with me. I received an email earlier today saying that the podcast has reached over two hundred thousand listens slash downloads, So thank you for making that possible, and thank you for making this podcast a part.
Of your day.
A couple of stories I want to get to today. One, I want to tell you why the Minnesota Vikings are one of the luckiest teams in the NFL, So that's coming up shortly. But there's another story that's a nationwide story that I want to react to, and it's a combination of an NFL story and an NBA story. So, following the Christmas Day matchup between the Warriors and Lakers, Lebron James did his postgame interview with Lisa Salters, and during this postgame interview, Lebron James has the audacity to say, I love the NFL, but Christmas is our day. Okay, he says that quote. I turned towards my wife and I say, you know what. The NFL is going to pummel the NBA in ratings today.
On Netflix.
And the NFL Chiefs dominated the Steelers. The Ravens man handled the Texans two blowout games. And then it was revealed and it says this on the ESPN dot com. Lebron James and the NBA should move over and make room for the NFL on Christmas. That shouldn't be a problem. Both league for winners. On Wednesday, Netflix set records as the most streamed NFL games in US history, while the NBA had its best Holiday numbers in five years, according to Nielsen. So the NBA has its best numbers in five years. Take a look at this the NFL in Nielsen said, sixty five million US viewers tuned in for at least one minute of one of the two NFL games. The NBA's five games slate averaged about five point two five million viewers per game across ABC, ESPN and its platforms, according to the league and Nielsen. So what this is telling you? And they must have changed this article because when I read the article the first day, it said that the NFL had five times the number as the NBA, and that's about five times the number. The NBA's five games late average five point two five million the NFL and Nielsen says sixty five million US viewers watched at least one minute of the two NFL games.
Sixty five million to five point two five million.
The NFL is king, and it will always be king in the sports world.
Whatever day hour the NFL wants it has.
If it goes overseas, play an eight thirty game, it gets that number. If it's playing on Christmas Day, it's gonna take out any sport anywhere, any day that tries to compete with it. And what bothers me most about Lebron James in the NBA right now is that the ratings have tank.
They're down twenty eight percent.
I'm less interested than I've ever been watching an NBA game.
And it's not just because the timber rolls are bad. The product stinks.
And what's so funny about it is that everyone says that you know the ratings.
The streams, it's different.
You know, how can you calculate how many people watch?
And this is the NBA.
Defending itself when the ratings numbers were down twenty eight percent.
And then as soon as they go up.
And have their best numbers in five years, you know what the NBA is all about. We had our best day in five years. Oh no, we're gonna keep that on the on the bottom low.
We're gonna be very quiet.
You know, the ratings and so hard to track, and it's it's not the same everyone. You know, YouTube TV and Hulu and those things are becoming. I have YouTube TV, but those things are not as popular as they used to be. YouTube TV but it's thirty four ninety nine when it first came out. We just got an email two weeks ago that said YouTube TV is going.
Up to eighty two to ninety nine per month.
It's about cable, maybe even worse because you have to flip and it takes a few buttons to go between the streaming apps, which doesn't bother me, but it bother there's a lot of people.
So the fact that the NBA.
Is so quiet and it's so insecure about their ratings and has all these excuses about streaming platforms. But as soon as they have one good day and it's our best year in five years take a look.
At these ratings. So I just wanted to talk about that first.
All right, my second big topic of the day, and this is the one you're tuning in Fornesota. Vikings have been one of the luckiest teams in the NFL this season, and it's none other than the injury report heading into this Green Bay Packers game. And before I go any further, I'm not going to apologize for the Minnesota Vikings being one of the luckiest teams in the NFL this year. It happens to every single good team every year. Health is a major factor of why every single team every single year wins the Super Bowl. So there's no reason for us to apologize about the Minnesota Vikings and their health this year. We don't have to be sorry, we don't have to feel bad, we don't have to be insecure. But the facts are facts, and the Minnesota Vikings have been one of the healthiest teams in the NFL this season. There's a tweet by Kevin seafferd that I'm about to pull up. It says this, We'll see what Kevin o'collin has to say later this afternoon. But the Vikings seem to have a decent chance of going into Sunday's game in near full health. Ivan Pace Junior hamstring and Harrison Smith foot were both once again at practice today. You look at the Detroit Lion situation and they have what thirteen fourteen to fifteen players on injured reserve on their defense alone.
I think their offense has remained.
Relatively healthy throughout the season, but you take a look at their defense and it's a shell of their original team that was on the field Week one. And the Minnesota Vikings basically have everybody ready to go in this game, besides Ivan Pace Junior being questionable which just came out, and Christian Darrisa who went down with the torn acl versus the Los Angeles Rams. Jefferson has been healthy for most of the year. Every game all year, Darnold's been dinged up, but hasn't missed any time. He'd just missed significant injury a few times when he banged his finger against one of those helmets, and he's been wearing one of those braces on his pinky during practice and during warmups. That shows you just how close he was to a significant injury. Ason was down early a few games, came back it's been healthy ever since Hockinson was out last year at the end of the year, came back in Week six or Week seven. It has been healthy all year. The offensive line has remain relatively intact besides Christian dearrisaw and they replaced him with a solid left tackle option, Cam Robinson and defensively, Smith Gilmore Griffin. Sure these guys missed a game or two. Blake cash and missed a game or two, but there have been no long standing injuries on the Minnesota Vikings this year, and that's been a major factor of why they've been so good. And so can assistant and like I said earlier, we don't need to apologize for it.
We don't have to feel bad about it.
But it's not like, you know, maybe the Vikings have the best training staff in the NFL. They probably do deserve a lot of credit for that, but you can't heal up a torn acl or a ruptured achilles or a broken collar.
But there's nothing you can do about that.
Sure, you have a great training facility and a doctors and medical care team and whatever, but at some point in time, there's a lot of luck that has to be considered because you don't go to a training room and get a torn acl repaired overnight and you know, get back on the football field the next day. The injuries that have amounted on the Minnesota Vikings this season besides.
One, have been very short term and the players.
Have been able to come back very quickly, and that's a huge reason why the team is thirteen and two right now, in control of their own destiny with a chance of being the number one seed in the NFC, when everyone predicted the Minnesota Vikings to miss the playoffs, besides a few and all random Joe Schmo's here at a random John does over there.
So it's been an incredible year.
I'm not gonna apologize for the incredible year, but we also have to be cognizant in realizing that the Minnesota Vikings have been one of the luckiest teams in the NFL this season because nobody has sustained a long term injury besides one player. It's not like you're the Lions and you got thirteen guys out. The defense is healthy, they're ready to go against Green Bay and against Detroit. So it's been awesome. Donald hasn't missed a game. He's missed a few Snapsman, it hasn't missed a game, and you know, Donald goes down. Season's over. Nick Mullins is not staving the team. Daniel Jones, he might not even be ready. So the fact that Donald has stayed healthy all year, with the shots that he's taken, with the amount of hits that he's had, I think the team is like third and most sacks during this NFL season, behind Caleb Williams. So you think about those numbers and you think about that fact and it's like, Wow, the Minnesota Vikings have been very fortunate and very blessed that no player has been injured, almost like a little special feels like a special season, and has had the ingredients all season long of being a special season. Thank you for watching this episode and thanks for going on this journey with me.