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On Monday afternoon, I visited five websites to track how sports on television ratings were tracking amid the pandemic restarts.

I got four different answers.

Monday’s news from NBC was that the first two days of the Stanley Cup Playoffs official first round “averaged 620,000 viewers across NBC Sports’ TV and digital platforms, up 13% from last year (551K).”

Forbes posted on Aug.1 that, compared to news coverage, things were lousy for sports. On Friday, Yahoo wrote that things are great for sports television.

Sports Media Watch moved a story on Thursday which suggested NBA ratings weren’t looking good, but everything else was.

And, on Aug. 7, Sportico had an in-depth piece which essentially said sports ratings haven’t been good since the return to play. But the blame seems to be more about the continued trend for viewers to flock away from broadcast television.

“Since the summer TV season began in May, overall TV usage is off 8% year-over-year to 73.9 million viewers per night,” notes writer Anthony Crupi. “(That’s) down from 80.6 million in the analogous period in 2019. With an average delivery of 10.3 million viewers per night, broadcast TV has been hit even harder, as the primetime audience for the Big Four networks has plummeted 19% year-over-year.”

So there you have it. When it comes to sports on TV…

• Everything is going fine.

• It’s awful.

• Just the NBA is bad.

• Sports viewership is down, but that’s not specifically sports’ fault.

Confused yet? Click those links and you will be.

Through the lack of clarity, though, one thing actually does become clear. The boom in sports viewership predicted due to the previous shutdown hasn’t been as much of a blatantly obvious win for television as many in the industry anticipated.

There are many reasons why.

Lack of fans in the stands: That means a lack of atmosphere. Granted, no one tunes into a pro sports game from home to watch other fans who are there.

But 19,000 people in a building, cheerleaders, courtside celebrities, real crowd noise and human emotion are better background than cardboard cutouts and tarps.

Plus, for as good of a job that the NBA and NHL have done to create the bubbles and sync their broadcasts to fit them, the stadiums are incredibly staid and antiseptic as a result. Only baseball has the advantage of each team playing in its familiar home park.

Lack of stakes: The NHL was able to dive right in with an elimination round and its first round of playoffs.

But Major League Baseball in August usually means teams are closing in on the last 60 days of the season. Not starting one. And the NBA is just now getting to its official playoffs.

Those sports will pick up buzz once greater importance is associated with the results of the games.

The start times: It’s fun that the NHL and NBA feel like March Madness right now, with games on TV all day.

A Washington Capitals fan will surely tune in to watch his team play the New York Islanders at 1 p.m. on a Tuesday.

But I’m doubting that a Buffalo Sabres fan is extending his lunch break to take in the Vancouver Canucks contest against the St. Louis Blues at 3 p.m.

Too much politics: The Washington Times advanced the notion that the NBA broadcasts and corresponding coverage may be too focused on the league’s social justice initiatives.

Then there is the inescapable specter of baseball managers, some coaches, and even some players wearing masks on the sidelines and the extreme social distancing measures threaded through the rule book.

Many folks largely look forward to sports as a way to get away from politically charged conversations on both fronts. Now they are woven into the fabric of the network presentation of the game so much, it hardly feels like the two- or three-hour respite some folks are seeking.

Real-feel temperature: What are we watching?!

Hockey in August. With a weird round robin and best-of-five series that technically aren’t “the playoffs,” but somehow they are?

NBA games that have mattered somewhat for certain teams, but not nearly as much for others.

A 60-game baseball season. With seven-inning double-headers and a National League designated hitter. Meanwhile, runners magically appear to open up extra innings, while entire teams magically disappear for weeks at time.

Is this all real? Is it just temporary? Is it going to matter in the end or is this all an exercise in futility?

I can’t blame a single sports fan whose brain can’t block out those questions while deciding to pick up a remote control to tune into a game.

The difference between all those articles talking about sports viewership is how the groups of numbers are framed. The data can be arranged and highlighted in whatever way you see fit to present them.

Come to think of it, that’s similar to how covid-19 data is often presented to the public — based on the bias of whatever news outlet you may be consuming at the time.

Some on #TeamStayInside will pluck the negative viewership numbers and say, “See, this is why there’s no need to rush back sports! They aren’t that important! People found other things to do during the pandemic.”

Those people are wrong. On many levels.

In fact, I’d argue the opposite. I’d say the ratings numbers are mixed because life outside of sports has impacted sports so much, we just want them back to the way we remember.

I know I do.

Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Tim at tbenz@triblive.com or via Twitter. All tweets could be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.

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