USA TODAY's Kevin Spain notes the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Conor McGregor fight was "delayed because of what Showtime called scattered outages.'" However, most of the problems "appeared to be" with UFC’s Fight Pass app that runs on "several different platforms and not the outages referenced by Showtime" (USA TODAY, 8/30).
START OF A NEW TREND? In California, Larry Bohannan noted the final round of the PGA Tour Northen Trust drew the fourth-highest, non-major rating of the season, and the number is a "bit out of the norm" for the '17 season. For the "most part, across the board, the ratings for the PGA Tour have been down this year." Reasons for this trend include the "lack of a No. 1 player" and the effect of missing Tiger Woods. No players have "particularly separated themselves from the rest of the pack to give the sport a clear No. 1, at least not for an extended period of time." Also, ratings for "most television sports are down." It will be "interesting to see if the ratings follow the strong showing in the first week of the playoffs" (DESERTSUN.com, 8/28).
CHANGE ON THE FLY: The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has announced that Jim Thomas will take over as "lead reporter" on the Blues beat. The role was previously held by Jeremy Rutherford, who will "depart next week after 12 years" of covering the Blues (STLTODAY.com, 8/29). Meanwhile, Minneapolis Star Tribune Wild reporter Michael Russo announced that he has "decided to leave" the paper effective Sept. 5 for "another opportunity" (TWITTER.com, 8/28).
