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🎤 QUICK START ✍️

🏀 The NBA All-Star Game ratings are in, and the league saw a 13% decline from last year. Given the palpable sense of disappointment in the product put forward by the NBA and TNT, it’s actually a surprise it wasn’t worse.

🐘 Tony Dungy may not be interested in a run for US Senate, but his former Sunday Night Football colleague Michele Tafoya might be? Since leaving NBC, Tafoya has been a right-wing influencer with some… interesting takes.

✍️ ESPN sage Jim Miller reports that there is an increased anxiety in Bristol thanks to high-profile layoffs in recent months at the company.

🚨LEADING OFF 🚨

Bigger than the Stanley Cup?

ESPN is going all out for Thursday night’s 4 Nations Face-Off Championship game featuring the United States and Canada. The tournament has been a dream scenario for everyone involved, from the NHL to the players to the league’s rights partners on TNT and ESPN.

But most importantly, it’s been a dream scenario for fans as they have found the perfect sporting event to latch onto in what otherwise would be a fairly dead part of the sports calendar directly after the Super Bowl and before March Madness gets going. Given the extended hockey break and the timing of the NBA All-Star Game, all major sports leagues have been absent from regular season or postseason action for a week now. It’s an unprecedented break in the schedule, but the 4 Nations has been able to fill it perfectly.

You can’t help but feel as if a snowball effect is leading to ESPN giving Thursday night’s championship game similar treatment to a Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. The tournament was initially presented as a big deal because we haven’t seen best-on-best international hockey in a decade. But once fans showed up in droves to watch the games, ESPN has rightfully capitalized on the interest. They’ve even had P.K. Subban in the studio on Get Up to break up the monotony of what the Dallas Cowboys will do this offseason! Do you realize how hard that is to do?

There will be live studio coverage for Thursday’s USA-Canada championship and an hour-long pregame show, and SportsCenter will also be on-site in Boston. In fact, it may be even more coverage than ESPN traditionally affords the Stanley Cup, given the network also has to commit resources to the NBA Playoffs during the summer.

USA-Canada should deliver huge ratings once again on Thursday night. A month ago, the Four Nations was hardly on sports fans' radars. Amazingly, now we don’t know what we would have done without it.

📣 SOCIAL EXPERIMENT 🌟

Chris Russo was the latest to ask what the NBA and TNT were thinking with their extended funeral for Inside the NBA at the All-Star Game.

Even Big Ten alum Michael Wilbon is unhappy with the proposal from the Big Ten and SEC to stage a hostile takeover of the College Football Playoff.

WWE announcer Michael Cole told an incredible story about how he almost ran Pat McAfee out of the company for wearing shorts at WrestleMania.

IN MEMORIAM

The hockey world paid tribute to longtime Pittsburgh Penguins announcer Mike Lange, who passed away at the age of 76. Lange was a one-of-a-kind personality behind the microphone and one of the most recognizable voices in sports.

📺 DATA DUMP 📺 

🏎️ The Daytona 500 saw ratings go up 13% for Fox this year to an average of 6.76 million viewers. However, that’s compared to a Monday race last year. It’s still the third-lowest race on record.

🏎️ In better news for the sport, the NASCAR Xfinity Series at Daytona saw its highest ratings in years. Who says The CW can’t be a destination for sports?

📺 Amazon and FanDuel Sports Networks announced a $19.99 per month price point for the regional sports network add-on to Amazon Prime Video to provide a new way to watch your local teams.

🔥THE CLOSER🔥

Where does hockey go from here?

After the 4 Nations is decided on Thursday, the question will become what happens next for hockey and the NHL. Compared to what the NBA is dealing with given the increasing dissatisfaction with their product, it’s a great question to be facing!

Can the NHL build on the momentum of the Four Nations and see ratings increase for the second half of the season? As we’ve seen this season, NHL ratings have at times been far worse than the slight declines the NBA is now experiencing.

So will the increased exposure and viewership translate to following these players when they return to their NHL clubs? Or, conversely, is the tournament simply a sign that fans love international hockey and the 4 Nations was able to catch lightning in a bottle?

It’s hard to imagine the hype for any future edition exceeding that of this inaugural event. Still, as we’ve pointed out, hockey could build a strong cadence for an annual international hockey summit in February between the Four Nations, the Winter Olympics, and the World Cup of Hockey.

But maybe that would be too much of a good thing. Hockey might want to be careful not to get into a scenario like golf, where fans love the Ryder Cup every other year. However, the Presidents’ Cup is seen as a secondary event that needs drastic changes. How can they deliver the right amount of international hockey to make it special in the coming years without watering it down?

It will take time to figure out the truth of how the pieces of international hockey and the NHL calendar fit in the puzzle together. But for now, hockey can celebrate its biggest moment in the sporting culture in many years.