For reasons neither known nor apparent, the Disney companies served up a staggered Monday night doubleheader that had Ravens-Buccaneers on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2 — and Chargers-Cardinals only on ESPN+.
It made no sense. And the latter game generated numbers not worth bragging about.
That’s become the P.R. strategy this year for ESPN. It’s better to not mention bad numbers, even if that leads to criticism for not mentioning numbers.
The Ravens-Bucs numbers were solid, “more than 16 million” viewers. (Which means, technically, at least 16 million and one viewers.) Last week’s Bills-Jets game did 17.3 million viewers.
This week’s broadcast game, of course, was partially cannibalized by the streaming game. Whatever the degree of cannibalization, however, the decision was made to not disclose it.