Anthony Crupi

New York

Sports Media Reporter at Sportico

Untouchable Boy Genius/Skeleton Emperor/Sports Media Reporter @Sportico https://t.co/hJfCpFsaUV

Articles

UFL Players Secure Pay Bump, Year-Round Health Care Under New CBA

6 days ago | sportico.com | Anthony Crupi

The United Football Players Association has hammered out its first collective bargaining agreement with the UFL, ratifying a two-year pact that includes a pay raise and a health care provision that extends into the offseason. Per the terms of the CBA, players who participate in all 10 regular-season games in 2025 will see their minimum salary increase from $55,000 to $62,005, while next year’s minimum payout will be set at $64,000.
NHL Faces Uphill Ratings Climb as Canadian Clubs Crowd Playoff Field

6 days ago | sportico.com | Anthony Crupi

For a heaving mass of self-professed adrenaline junkies and thrill seekers, Americans tend to play it safe when it comes to their sports preferences. How else to explain our weird aversion for playoff hockey, a nerve-shredding two-month stretch that is almost farcically overlooked relative to the volume of thrills that are dished out every night?
Luka Dončić Trade to Lakers Powers NBA Ratings Rebound

1 week ago | sportico.com | Anthony Crupi

After months of endless Chicken Little-ing about the NBA’s early-season ratings challenges, the league’s most vocal critics have little to crow about as the playoffs get underway, since overall TV deliveries were largely of a piece with last year’s numbers. All told, the 2024-25 campaign averaged 1.53 million viewers across ABC, ESPN and TNT, which marked a decline of some 30,000 viewers per game compared to the year-ago figure—a 2% dip from one season to the next.
Rory McIlroy's Historic Masters Win Draws 13M Viewers, a 7-Year High

1 week ago | sportico.com | Anthony Crupi

In securing a rare career Grand Slam by way of a playoff hole, Rory McIlroy gave CBS its highest Masters deliveries since 2018, and very nearly set a 10-year record for the spring major. According to Nielsen live-same-day data, CBS’s broadcast of the Sunday round at Augusta averaged 12.99 million viewers, a mere 37,000 viewers shy of the 13.03 million mark notched seven years ago.
CBS' 70-Year Masters TV Run Is the Stuff Legends Are Made Of

1 week ago | sportico.com | Anthony Crupi

“Jolly” probably isn’t a word that gets tossed around much on the grounds of the Augusta National Golf Club, although there’s a pretty solid chromatic argument for making use of the roughly 720-year-old adjective during the Masters Tournament. Just a few smidges lighter than Pantone 342, the verdant shade synonymous with the totemic Green Jacket, “Jolly Green” offers a fair approximation of the course’s ⅜-inch fairways after a light spring rain.
UFL Ratings Sink Nearly 40% While PGA Tour Wallops LIV

2 weeks ago | sportico.com | Anthony Crupi

In the heat of a frenzied sports weekend, it’s axiomatic that niche offerings will take a back seat to the events that traditionally command an outsized TV audience. Such was the case this past weekend, when tens of millions of fans keyed in on the denouement of the college basketball season at the expense of lesser spectacles such as spring football and one notoriously schismatic pro golf startup.
Florida Gators Chomp Down on 6-Year Men's Hoops Ratings High

2 weeks ago | sportico.com | Anthony Crupi

CBS may have missed out on the sure-thing ratings bonanza that a Duke national championship appearance always brings, but Monday night’s Florida-Houston title tilt still managed to scare up a six-year audience high. According to Nielsen live-plus-same-day data, the Gators’ stunning 65-63 defeat of Kelvin Sampson’s Cougars averaged 18.1 million viewers, making the men’s NCAA championship game the most-watched since 2019, when Virginia’s win over Texas Tech drew 19.6 million viewers.
YouTube Is Insanely Rich and Popular. That's Bad News for Sports TV.

2 weeks ago | sportico.com | Anthony Crupi

If it can be said that a company that can lay claim to nearly 12% of all U.S. video consumption has been flying under the sports-media rights radar, then YouTube is cruising along at an undetectable altitude. But the Google-owned utility may be poised to make off with one of the few assets that still brings tens of millions of consumers in front of their TV sets, and if this should come to pass, at least one legacy partner may be liquidating its assets just a few years down the road.
With NHL Deal Locked In, Rogers Eyes New Streaming Sublicense

3 weeks ago | sportico.com | Anthony Crupi

While the NHL’s new 12-year, $7.7 billion extension with Rogers locks in national media rights across all platforms, including TV, digital and streaming, the owner of Canada’s Sportsnet will likely continue to share the road with a prominent third party via a sublicensing agreement.
March Madness Elite Eight Ratings Decline Despite Duke Boost

3 weeks ago | sportico.com | Anthony Crupi

TV ratings for the Elite Eight round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament took a hit on Sunday, as the pair of CBS broadcasts were disadvantaged by comparisons with the Easter-boosted results of a year ago. According to Nielsen live-same-day data, Sunday’s deliveries were down 26% versus the year-ago windows, which aired on what is now widely recognized as one of the bigger days for OOH lifts on the sports calendar.