Remember Trump’s “Bigly” Patriot Games? No worries. I’d already forgotten the whole flop too. Still, it’s worth a quick look back at how badly the whole thing flopped. For all the fanfare including Trumpty-Dumpty himself showing up for the final day to hand out awards the prime-time TV he was sure would be a rating hit…wasn’t! So don’t feel bad if you missed the spectacle. Almost everyone else did too.
ABC which had caved to Trump early on in his second administration acquired controlling interest in ESPN over four decades ago. ABC’s sports division, established in 1961 merged with ESPN in 2006 and since then we’ve had ‘ESPN on ABC’ – the latter uses ESPN staff for production and coverage of sporting events. Naturally, with ABC having cowed to his demands Trump correctly assumed he could get them to broadcast his “Inaugural Patriot Games” in prime-time. Well, he got his wish but according to Awful Announcing just like the actual Games the prime-time TV special flopped. The article opens by noting ESPN’s ‘complete lack of on-air promotion’ for Trump’s Patriot Games last week. It flat out says it’s easy to assume the network wanted little to do with what was clearly going to be nothing but a glorified high school fitness test conjured up by President Donald Trump as part of the Freedom 250 initiative. That was the opening salvo. Awful Announcing continued:
At least, the network wanted little to do with airing the farcical competition. Disney CEO Josh D’Amaro, ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro, and ESPN frontman Pat McAfee sat side-by-side with Trump during the Patriot Games’ grand finale, kissing the ring as is required under this administration. Yet, the networks of Disney allotted just one hour to the much ballyhooed games … two whole days after the competition ended.
The author of the linked article then dryly notes “Perhaps there was good reason for that. No one was interested in watching.” I’d call that a big ouch for Trump and his ego. He made a point after all of travelling to Ohio (at taxpayer expense) to preside over the final day. No doubt he had visions of himself dominating the TV special, cheering on the competitors (instead of covering the actual competition) and making a big fuss as he handed out awards. You know, you just KNOW Trump figured the TV special would be a YUGE ratings hit with him once again ‘starring’ in a ‘reality’ TV show. Alas, things didn’t turn out that way:
According to viewership data compiled by Awful Announcing’s Manny Soloway, ABC’s one-hour telecast of the Patriot Games, which amounted to a highlight show of the competitions’ best moments, drew just 1.21 million viewers last Thursday. One week prior, ABC aired Press Your Luck in the same timeslot and scored 2.86 million viewers. The week before that, Press Your Luck averaged 2.88 million viewers. The Trumped-up Patriot Games could only scrounge up less than half the audience of a game show that’s been around for 43 years.
I could write plenty about the whole fiasco. I already posted an article about it you can read here. The whole thing was as I said a ‘Charlie Fox’ from conception to the actual games and best forgotten. As I said at the beginning I already had done so. However any chance to zing Trump over a failure is one that should be taken so for what will hopefully be the last time I’m writing about Trumpty’s PATHETIC Patriot Games.
Given all that’s been in the news this week I wonder what his binky, formerly known as his human printer will do to make him feel better when he asks her to print out some articles about the ‘great’ TV ratings! (I know. Eeeewww) We can only hope that in a press gaggle some reporter will ask Trump about the dismal ratings for what will likely be the first and last Patriot Games.
