Politics: The One Demographic Being Ignored This Summer -- Middle Class White Males -- September 6, 2020

Disclaimer: in a long note like this, written before I've had my coffee and breakfast, there will be content and tpographical errors, as well as really bad grammar. But I'm too eager for coffee to proofread.

That was a headline elsewhere -- about the middle class white male being ignored this summer. I think one could extend that "middle class" quite a bit. 

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The US Economy

I would imagine that the demographics and economic data would show that the US economy is, in a large part, driven by the middle class white male. I could be wrong. In Portland, OR, for example, the economy seems to be run by Antifa and #BLM. 

You know, it's interesting, some years ago, again I could be wrong, but some years ago, I really do remember that the Portland Trailblazers were a "thing." They were a big draw for residents of Portland. Having visited Portland recently and spoken frequently with my extended family who have lived in Portland for decades, it is noteworthy that news regarding the Trailblazers, the Rose Garden, downtown shopping, etc., never, never, never come up in conversation. The only thing that comes up in conversation in Portland is/are the nightly riots -- I guess the city is "celebrating" it's 100th consecutive night of mayhem. And I still ask about Powell's book store.

Wow, what a digression.

I'm not sure you can blame the MLB ratings crash on "wokeness," but it's as good a start as anything. I'm a very, very fair weather fan of MLB. 

In fact, I've become a fair weather fan of almost any professional sport these days -- although with regard to the BLM, I haven't enjoyed professional basketball since Phil Jackson coached the Chicago Bulls. Sometime after the end of the Chicago Bulls dynasty, the switch to Los Angeles Lakes, the Shak-Kobe feud, Kobe going Hollywood, the demise of defense, and finally, the re-branding, everything changed ... for the worse. 

Wow, if the MLB ratings have crashed due to "wokeness," imagine how BLM ratings have done.

But I digress. From Zero Hedge:

Primetime ratings for Major League Baseball  are in freefall, as the season began with players kneeling for the National Anthem and standing for Black Lives Matter.

The league joins the 'highly political NBA,' which has turned off a large portion of its audience and seen ratings suffer as a result.

Sunday, baseball’s flagship primetime night, has been particularly bad.

As Sports Media Watch reports, last Weekend’s edition of Sunday Night Baseball was down 30 percent over last year.

Think about that: Sunday Night Baseball was down 30 percent over last year. Folks have nowhere to go on Sunday nights any more. On top of that, there is nowhere to go for sports ... and here, we are. One would have thought televised sports ratings would be going through the roof. 

Again, I think the demographics might show that the middle class American white male might be driving some of this, but then I could be wrong. In Portland, it seems the middle class isn't driving anything. But back to MLB.

The site reported that the “Braves-Phillies earned a 0.8 and 1.20 million on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball (including ESPN2 Statcast coverage) — down 30% in ratings and 33% in viewership from week five of last season (5/5/19: Cardinals-Cubs: 1.1, 1.81M), but up a tick and 2% respectively from last year’s comparable date (9/1/19 Mets-Phillies: 0.7, 1.19M).

Saturday wasn't much better - with Sports Media Watch reporting that "FOX averaged a 0.9 rating and 1.36 million viewers for regional Major League Baseball last Saturday afternoon (Braves-Phillies or Indians-Cardinals), marking its smallest MLB audience in two years."

And, again, these television viewers have nowhere to go on Saturday and Sunday with the continued lock downs. They must all be watching re-runs of "Sex In The City."

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College Football's Biggest Fumble

Part of the reason the Big 10 and PAC-12 decided to dispense with college football (and all college sports) this year was due to "reports" like this: Covid-19 is linked to heart disease in college athletes -- especially those in Pennsylvania.

Now, it's being reported -- as expected -- that that is not true. Like everything else, any death this past year was attributed to that novel Chinese virus. And it makes sense: anyone arriving at a hospital emergency room, regardless of reason, was tested for the virus. If positive, that was the admitting diagnosis. Gunshot wound to abdomen was a secondary. The gunshot wound to the abdomen was easy to manage; the virus, not so much. The entire emergency room, surgical suite and post-op unit had to be declared a zone 2 biohazard.

But back to Wuhan flu and heart disease in college athletes. Not true, apparently.

Again, from Zero Hedge:

With the media poised to pounce on negative Covid headlines at any chance they are given, it is more important now than ever to make sure that those headlines are accurate.

Inaccurate headlines can cause an uproar, as we found out last week when it was falsely reported that an astonishing 30% to 35% of Big Ten college athletes that were positive for Covid also had myocarditis - inflammation of the heart muscle. It was an astonishing figure that may left the world thinking: if 30% to 35% of college athletes were getting it, surely everyone else was, too.

"When we looked at our COVID-positive athletes, whether they were symptomatic or not, 30 to roughly 35 percent of their heart muscles are inflamed ... and we really just don't know what to do with it right now. It's still very early in the infection. Some of that has led to the Pac-12 and the Big Ten's decision to sort of put a hiatus on what's happening," Penn State Doctor Wayne Sebastianelli said on Monday.

Reports like the one in USA Today read: "...cardiac scans of Big Ten athletes who contracted COVID-19 showed '30 to roughly 35 percent of their heart muscles' indicated symptoms of myocarditis." 

The figured sounded enormous to us; in fact, we almost did a write up on the headline earlier this week but decided to hold off to see if more information would become available.

And, lo and behold, more information did become available. Turns out the earlier headlines simply weren't true.

See the link for the rest of the story. My time is up.