Morning Links: Super Bowl Ratings, Cavs Woes Continue

Cavs Reach A New Low In Futility:

The Cleveland Cavaliers lost their 25 straight game yesterday, setting the record for most consecutive losses ever. Not only the Cavs hold the record (and continue to add to it every game) for most losses in a single season, but they now hold the consecutive loss record for any point of time, including those teams that spanned two seasons. Cleveland right now has nothing going for them, and they look to be in complete disarray. The Cavs should begin to look to make some big moves at the trade deadline to start the post-Lebron rebuilding process, though at this point they don’t have a lot in the way of commodities to deal. Regardless, of how bad of a team the Cavs are, there is no reason they should have 25 straight losses, one can only hope they pull themselves together soon and find a way out of this.

Super Bowl XLV Sets Rating Mark:

Over 111 million people tuned into Packers beating the Steelers on Sunday, as this year’s Super Bowl set the record for most viewed television show in history. It represented a 4.5 million jump from last season, and showed once again why the NFL is the strongest sports league, and that football has taken over as America’s pastime. Overall this season the NFL’s viewership was up 13 percent, and is up 24 percent over the last half decade. This shows once again why I don’t believe that either the Owners or Players will look to have any sort of work stoppage in the coming months, as there is too much on the line. Sure the NFL would still get next year’s TV revenue, but they’d have to pay it back eventually and a lockout would upset quite a few sponsors. As for the players they wouldn’t be paid this year, and if a lockout starting hurting viewership, it will affect future TV deals and sponsorship dollars, which ends up hurting the players as well since their amount of money is predicated on an overall percentage of revenues. I believe cooler heads will prevail, but the Super Bowl ratings are hopefully a sobering reminder of what is at stake for both the League and the Players.