Notes From All Over -- Part 1 -- October 9, 2020

First things first: I see that the Chicago Bears defeated Tom Brady last night.

Second things first: I see the NY Yankees have stretched the series to a full five-game "win-or-go-home" game. Division series fifth game tonight against the Tampa Bay Rays.

Whoo-hoo! I was going to sleep in but I happened to wake up early and I checked The WSJ. The third story I saw: AMD in talks with Xilinx. Whoo-hoo. 

Disclaimer: this is not an investment site.  Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here.

Xilinx: I bought shares in Xilinx decades ago for one of our two daughters. I was blown away when I saw XLNX up 12% this morning. From The WSJ:

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. is in advanced talks to buy rival chip maker Xilinx Inc., in a deal that could be valued at more than $30 billion and mark the latest big tie-up in the rapidly consolidating semiconductor industry. 

There is no guarantee they will get there, especially given that the talks had stalled before recently restarting 

AMD’s market value now tops $100 billion after its shares soared 89% this year as the coronavirus pandemic stokes demands for PCs, gaming consoles and other devices that use the company’s chips. Second-quarter revenue rose 26% to $1.93 billion, while net income jumped more than fourfold to $157 million on the back of record notebook and server-processor sales. 

The surge in AMD shares could embolden the company to make an acquisition using its stock as currency. Xilinx has a market value of about $26 billion, with its shares up about 9% so far this year, just ahead of the S&P 500’s 7% rise.

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Back To Pro Sports Viewership

The most ridiculous analysis: over at USA Today -- the four reasons why viewership is down. Word search did not find "BLM." Here the four reasons and comments:

1. Cannabilization on the calendar. LOL. This has been true for the past ten years.
2. It's not part of our natural cycle to be watching sports on weekday afternoons. Oh, give me a break. With folks starved for televised sports, they should be showing up. Sure, there might be a slight loss, but look at the numbers: the Stanley Cup Finals were down 61% from last year; the US Open tennis tournament was down 45% from last year, and the list goes on (see below).
3. Lack of fans in the stands. LOL. Oh, give me a break. With folks starved for televised sports, they should be showing up. In fact, all those fans not showing up in the stands -- wouldn't they be home watching on television?
4. A presidential election going on. LOL. USA Today should have stopped with three reasons. The first three were bad enough but #4 -- a presidential election going on -- LOL -- that's the best reason to watch televised sports. To get away from the inanity of politics, but if you inflict politics into sports, folks will turn away.

Look how bad the numbers are, as reported by USA Today: 

• Ratings for the Stanley Cup Finals were down 61% from last year, averaging 2.1 million viewers.
• The final round of the U.S. Open golf tournament had 3.2 million viewers, by far the fewest going back more than 30 years.
• The U.S. Open tennis tournament viewership fell sharply on ESPN, down 45% from the year before. The French Open is down 57% so far on NBC. 
• The Kentucky Derby, which normally gets around 15 million viewers, only had 9.3 million at its rescheduled slot in September.
• Even the NFL, which has had some bright spots in the ratings thus far and seems to be holding steady, has had trouble getting viewers in certain windows like Thursday night, which has recorded consecutive lows for prime-time games.

A reader wrote to me about the low viewership. My not-ready-for-prime-time reply:

There are a lot of reasons for NFL, MBA, etc., crashing with regard to viewership.

We "hear" artificial noise from the stadiums to make the games seem more real, but there's no noise in the stadium. If one thinks about that, it simply seems like a "pick-up" game among a bunch of rich men, playing playground football or high school basketball. I don't think anyone is really taking it seriously, these games. They are essentially scrimmages. [This is slightly different than how USA Today tries to explain low viewership away.]

But, the "social justice," "BLM stuff" is tiresome. Just when you get involved in the game, they cut to a "social justice" commercial or a political ad to get you to vote, etc, and that completely irritates someone like me and I at least turn down the volume if I don't switch stations.

Some people say the bars are closed but unless they have a fudge factor of 100 people watching a game in the bar, the bars are few in number compared to home viewing.

People getting together for parties at home are also a thing of the past, but in the big scheme of things, I can't imagine that resulting in a lot of viewers.

I think it gets back to the "social justice" experience -- during the game, by the announcers, in the commercials.

It's why I won't watch (much) any more. I surf over to professional sports -- I can't take BLM at all; the NFL is tolerable but as soon as as "social justice" commercial comes on, I switch stations.