Warriors F Draymond Green has officially joined TNT; Troy Aikman is unsure of his TV future; more news on Nielsen’s undercount of out-of-home viewing.
TNT adds Draymond Green
Turner Sports announced Thursday that it has reached a multi-year deal with Golden State Warriors F Draymond Green to serve as a studio analyst as his schedule allows. Green, a frequent guest analyst on TNT during the NBA’s “bubble” restart two years ago, will make a combination of in-person and remote appearances throughout the season, beginning with an appearance on “Inside the NBA” early Friday morning.
Green is not the first active athlete to join a network during his playing career. NFLers Drew Brees and Greg Olsen joined NBC and FOX, respectively, during their playing careers — though both were entering their final seasons at the time. There is no indication that Green will be retiring any time soon.
Aikman unsure of future
In a pair of pieces published Wednesday, FOX NFL analyst Troy Aikman told The Athletic and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that he does not know where he will be working next season. Aikman, who is in the final year of his FOX contract, acknowledged in both interviews that he has had conversations with Amazon about their Thursday Night Football package. When asked by the Star-Telegram whether Sunday’s NFC Championship Game could be his final FOX broadcast, he said that “it could be,” though he does not “anticipate” that will be the case.
Nielsen undercount cost tens of millions in ad revenue, per VAB
The Video Advertising Bureau said Wednesday that it believes Nielsen’s recently-admitted undercount of out-of-home viewing resulted in tens of millions of dollars in lost advertising inventory, with live sportscasts most-affected. Nielsen said late last year that it had been undercounting out-of-home viewing since it began including said data in its national viewership estimates in September 2020. Specifically, the company failed to include out-of-home viewing for broadband-only homes.
The VAB examined Nielsen’s reprocessed data — only eight months of revisions were available — and found that viewership had been revised upward for a number of marquee sports properties, including the NFL’s 4:25 PM ET Sunday national windows (+2.3%), Sunday Night Football (+1.4%), Thursday Night Football (+2.0%), ABC’s Saturday night college football (+1.9%), last year’s Olympics (+1.6%) and last year’s NBA Eastern Conference Finals on TNT (+2.5%).
As previously noted, the Raiders-Cowboys NFL Thanksgiving Day game on CBS was revised upward from 37.8 to 40.8 million, a move that per the VAB is owed to the out-of-home undercount. [VAB]
