Voice of the Quakers

Two questions: 1) What prompted Esposito to leave OSU in the first place? 2) If Esposito did truly want the USA Wrestling position, what's going on in Colorado Springs?

I just hope somebody - anybody - talks to the ridiculousness of Fix's participation in this year's tourney on ESPN's telecast this year and to the fact that he could've taken his 2nd ORS and been competing next season. In team sports, these extra years, COVID and otherwise, are killing chances for high school athletes to join college teams. This will trickle into individual sports like wrestling if this nonsense is not stopped.

Better at Greco than at field dressing a moose in a hurry, apparently. Pretty sure his title was at the Cadet level. Dallas Seavey almost took a different path in the sports world. He was the first Alaskan to win a USA national wrestling championship when he took the 125-pound Greco-Roman title in 2003 and trained for a year at the U.S. Olympic Training Center before concussions led him to back to mushing. https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/39719071/dallas-seavey-breaks-record-sixth-iditarod-victory

Fun article on how Mike Rotunda ended up joining the Syracuse wrestling team. Also, a link to the 1981 EIWA bracket, which Mike won at UNL. Lots of familiar names in what was a two team race between Cuse and Lehigh, including two all-time greats for the Engineers. Shame to see all of the schools that have dropped wrestling since. https://www.syracuse.com/sports/2024/03/former-syracuse-football-player-wrestler-part-of-wwe-hall-of-fame-class-of-2024.html https://wrestlingstats.com/eiwa/pdf/brackets/EIWA 1981.pdf

I feel good about it. Assuming he qualifies, Swisher is going to be a land mine at NCAAs. Also, Penn is good at math.

I'd argue we need less sets in men's tennis. Joker, Nadal, etc. and their 5 and 6 hour matches have made the game unwatchable except for purists.

The lack of a 1500 for women was sexist. I've worked in TV for 30 years. The timing by FINA/World Aquatics to include a 1500 for women when Ledecky was the biggest US swimming star, as the US generates half of the TV rights revenue for the IOC, was not coincidental. https://www.statista.com/statistics/199938/broadcast-rights-fees-of-the-olympic-games-since-1998/

800 might be in contest, but the FINA/World Aquatics added the 1,500 for women last cycle to "give" Ledecky another gold medal and that still seems assured for these games and maybe even 2028. That being said, Caitlan Clark is winning this year's award by in a walk.

No longer in effect. EIWA site reports Wilkes only sent 6 wrestlers to the tourney in 1996. (I thought they had started the tourney -15.) Pretty sure the rule was changed shortly thereafter. https://eiwawrestling.org/results/EIWA_results_1996.pdf

I would joke that Michigan doesn’t have any takedowns thru 4 matches, but the non-Mesenbrink tally for Penn State is not impressive, either

Bormet wasting a challenge on his transfer national champ against a wrestler two weight classes smaller is peak Michigan

I would say Starocci is ducking Griffith, but who are we kidding

Charlie bit me!

A scouting trip for Snyder - I love how he tests himself more than most of our top guys. I think many of our guys wrestle too little these days. He'll be better against the Iranian the next time. Tad is a whole 'nother problem for Snyder and everyone.

Linear TV and digital media are generally measured and counted differently because the advertising models for each media are different. Linear TV viewing totals are the averages of every minute watched because advertisers want to know how many viewers watched their ads, not the content itself. So, more than 34,000 watched some portion of the OKST-NCST dual on ESPNU - very few people watch every minute of any telecast (think of the channel surfing you do) - but the average number of viewers at any given time was 34,000. Linear TV is primarily measured by Nielsen and a viewer counts if the program is watched in the same format as the original telecast WITH THE SAME AD CONTENT within 7 days of viewing. So, if you recorded that match on ESPNU using your YouTubeTV virtual cable TV subscription service and watched within 7 days of the original telecast - which it sounds like you did - your viewing could be added to an amended total that is provided to the network and its advertisers. (Not sure I want to go into all that goes into the final tabulations of data from Nielsen's panel and its access to "big data" from cable services.) However, in digital media like streaming video, ads are delivered on an individual basis based on what the platform believes who is watching on a given device. (These assumptions are hilariously terrible and people would be a lot less worried about data privacy if they knew how badly the algorithms worked.) So, if a person watches the match on YouTube and not the YouTube virtual cable service, viewing would be added to a separate cumulative total of views of the meet on the platform no matter how much or little of the meet you watched. Ultimately, the powers that be at ESPNU would much prefer you to watch the meet on ESPNU in real time because they would make more money if you did. But, they also know they must follow their viewers. So if people want to watch portions of the meet on YouTube they will put it there lest people watch pirated versions of their telecast and they make no money whatsoever.

Linear TV and streaming TV have about the same audience share as we speak, and streaming TV is definitely growing and cannibalizing itself at the same time. (That "Other" bucket is largely streaming via cable set top box app and video game viewing.) Per my response above, the Big 4 Broadcast networks would rank between Netflix and Amazon Prime Video on the right hand side. Granted, these networks do it each airing ONE program at a time while YouTube does its with nearly infinite choice and Netflix has over 10,000 individual titles. Ultimately, the largest TV events will reaming on linear TV because it is where you can still gather the largest audience and, in turn, generate the most revenue. It's great that you and I can feed our unique media needs on streaming, but there's a reason why it's called BROADcasting.

Average Prime viewership rankings and Persons 2+ viewers by network for 2023, according to Nielsen: 1. NBC - 4,537,000 Persons 2+ watched any minute from 8-11P M-Sat / 7-11P Sun 2. CBS - 4,508,000 3. ABC - 3,888,000 4. FOX - 3,353,000 6. ESPN - 1,705,000 40. ESPN 2 - 323,000 107 BTN - 64,000 121. ESPNU - 44,000 You, like me, are but one person of the 330 million in the US.

Scripted entertainment of linear TV sees significant viewing on a delayed basis, but delayed viewing of live sports is a bit of a myth.

I've worked in TV audience research and measurement for ~30 years. No one tunes into BTN or ESPNU for anything but college football, and even then the best matchups will have 1/10th of the audience of the crappiest game on ESPN 2 and 1/100th if the crappiest game on ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, or ESPN. Be happy that theses networks are re-learning that live sports content beats talk shows and whatever the heck these networks rerun when they're not showing live games and that wrestling is getting a larger platform. But, be ready to scrutinize the audiences for our sport when meets or tournament finals are on ESPN or ESPN 2. That's when we can have that apples to apples comparison with the other sports fighting for more media coverage.

UFC. If they want cash, go take the cash. I'll be cheering for the concussions.

Given Penn's lineup at Lehman, I would expect Troczynski at 149, Revano at 157 and Urbas at 197.

F&M Lehman Open pre-seeds this weekend. Really respect what the staff is doing in Lancaster. 125: 1.Troy Hohman NC State 2.Vincent Robinson NC State .Anthony Molton Campbell 4.Zander Phatorus Campbell 5.Nick Treaster Unattached 6.Carson Wagner Binghamton 133: 1.#17 Braxton Brown Maryland 2.#18 Dominic Zaccone Campbell 3.#25 Brandon Ferretti Navy 4.#27 Mason Leiphart F&M 5.#29 Vince Santaniello Pitt 6.Gable Strickland Lock Haven 7.#3 D2 Devin Flannery Millersville 8.Coleman Nogle Harvard 141: 1.#9 Kal Miller Maryland 2.#20 Joshua Koderhandt Navy 3.#22 Wyatt Henson Lock Haven 4. #27 Cole Matthews Pitt 5.Connor McMonagle Lehigh 6.Carter Bailey Lehigh 7.Devin Matthews LIU 8.Chris Rivera Campbell http:// 9.Rich Treanor Army 10.Pat Phillips F&M 149: 1.#13 Ethen Miller Maryland 2.Shannon Hanna Unattached Campbell 3.#8 D2 Craig Cook Millersville 4.Matt Williams Army 5.Michael Zarif Binghamton 6.Kelly Dunnigan Penn 7.Ty Linsenbigler Lock Haven 8.Nicholas Stonecheck Lock Haven 157: 1.Connor Eck Lock Haven 2.#31 Michael North Maryland 3.Luke Nichter Drexel 4.Micah Hanau Army 5.Carter Baer Binghamton 6.Rhise Royster LIU 7.Jared Keslar Pitt 8.Jude Swisher Penn 9.Dylan Evans Pitt 165: 1.#16 Brevin Cassella Binghamton 2.#24 Andrew Cerniglia Navy 3.#26 Josh Kim Harvard 4.Dalton Harkins Army 5.Dom Baker Campbell 6.#6 D2 Brandon Connor Millersville 7.Connor Herceg Lehigh 8.Dakota Morris Army 174: 1.#12 Phil Conigilaro Harvard 2.#21 Danny Wask Navy 3.#26 Austin Murphy Campbell 4.AJ Burkhart Lehigh 5.Josiah Queen Drexel 6.Noah Fox F&M 7.Noah Blake Air Force 8.Will Ebert Binghamton 184: 1.#17 James Conway F&M 2.#22 Jacob Nolan Binghamton 3.#28 David Key Navy 4.Caleb Hopkins Campbell 5.Leo Tarantino Harvard 6.Anthony D’Alesio LIU 7.Colin Fegley Lock Haven 8.#8 D2 Anthony Giampietro Millersville 9.Daniel Lawrence Army 197: 1.#5 Jaxon Smith Maryland 2.#14 Lou Deprez Binghamton 3.#20 Levi Hopkins Campbell 4.#32 John Crawford F&M 5.Martin Cosgrove Penn 6.Christian Knop NC State 7.Wolfgang Frable Army 8.Cael Crebs Navy 285: 1.#2 Wyatt Hendrickson Air Force 2.#8 Taye Ghadiali Campbell 3.#13 Grady Griess Navy 4.#22 Cory Day Binghamton 5.#23 Seth Nevills Maryland 6.Austin Kolhofer Army 7.Josh Harkless Unattached 8.Chase Horne NC State 9.Jamie Ferere Navy

This has been a long time coming. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner, particularly after the COVID year when a lot of non-Ivies scarfed up bids earned by teams not wrestling that season. Money, of course, is the answer to all of life's questions. I would think one of the ESPN channels would air the finals of net year's tournament live. That won't suck. Still, as other posters have noted, the Ivy League would likely get 3 AQs per weight class. It can only help recruiting when you can tell as kid that if you earn the starting nod you'll have a 50 percent chance of making the tournament in a 6 team league.

Slackman and Ben Goldin were nip and tuck - Goldin beat Slackman at Keystone, but Slackman did get the start over Goldin at Penn State. If my memory is right, both were eventually nicked up either at or right after Midlands, with Goldin returning for EIWAs. Still, as Slackman notes in one of the articles, I cannot underemphasize the impact COVID had in the Ivy League. Penn's entire team essentially withdrew from school to preserve eligibility after the league decided not to compete in sports in 2020-21. (Rightly or wrongly - I believe wrongly - the schools weren't even offering in-person classes. How could they possibly justify playing games?) Gave a lot of kids a lot of time to think. Happy he came to his decision and that it worked out so well for him.

Oh, what could've been. Keep him in your thoughts as he chases his NFL dreams. https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/39137010/ivy-league-football-standout-joey-slackman-transfers-florida https://247sports.com/article/im-not-a-normal-football-recruit-from-the-wrestling-mat-to-cfbs-no-1-transfer-meet-penns-joey-slackman-221633560/ https://pennathletics.com/news/2023/12/18/football-slackman-earns-dolph-schayes-award-for-oustanding-jewish-athlete-of-the-year.aspx