SI

Tiger King vs. The Last Dance

How did ESPN's The Last Dance rank with the Twitter crowd?

Jimmy Traina

1. When the pandemic exploded back in March and people stayed home for a couple of months, the world of entertainment was dominated by two documentaries: ESPN's The Last Dance and Netflix's Tiger King.

Remember when people tweeted about Tiger King and Carole Baskin and Joe Exotic 24 hours a day? Fun times.

But guess what? People on Twitter had more to say about the show that covered Michael Jordan and the dominating run by the Bulls in the '90s. According to Twitter, users sent more tweets about the The Last Dance than Tiger King.

In fact, ESPN's 10-part docuseries, which debuted April 19 and aired each Sunday night through May 17, was the most tweeted about television show of the year.

All these years later and Michael Jordan is still dominating.

Here are the 10 Most Tweeted-About TV Shows of 2020:

1) The Last Dance
2) Tiger King
3) The Bachelor
4) Saturday Night Live
5) The Daily Show With Trevor Noah
6) The Mandalorian
7) Grey's Anatomy
8) The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
9) Jeopardy!
10) The Late Late Show With James Corden

One interesting nugget from this list: In this world where streaming is king and network television "is dead," eight of the 10 shows are on traditional television while only two, Tiger King and The Mandalorian, are on streaming services.

2. This week's "Bad Beats" from Scott Van Pelt and Stanford Steve is worth watching just to see what happened in the first half of the Syracuse–Notre Dame game.

3. The Alex Smith story is simply amazing.

Smith not only led Washington to a win over previously unbeaten Pittsburgh on Monday, but he did it while his leg (not the one that was broken and surgically repaired) was gushing blood at one point. But when you've gone through the injuries Smith has gone through, a little a lot of blood isn't going to faze him.

4. Tony Romo appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! on Monday night and the two told a great story about going to a "party" one night at Willie Nelson's house.

5. I read the first sentence of this apology from UNLV quarterback Max Gilliam and thought he committed a felony, but it turned out he ate sushi off a naked model on a reality show. 

My guess, based on Gilliam's follow-up tweet, is that he wasn't the one who decided to come up with his absurd apology tweet.

6. The latest SI Media Podcast features a conversation with Chris Long. The Super Bowl champion, who now hosts the Amazon Prime pregame show on Thursday nights and the Green Light podcast three days a week, shared his insight into what NFL players are going through this season while trying to play through a pandemic.

Long also talks about what's going on with Tom Brady and the Bucs, and why he thinks people shouldn't sleep on the Packers.

Non-football topics Chris and I discussed include our hatred of shaving, Uggs, celebrity-scented candles, the funniest TV/movie death or funeral scenes and much more.

You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher and Google Play.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: Howard Stern officially announced today that he has re-upped with SiriusXM for five more years. As a die-hard listener, I just wanted to point out that whether the King of All Media was at NBC, K-Rock or SiriusXM, the best thing about the show always has been, and always will be, Howard imitating his parents. The second-best thing about the show is Howard goofing on Gary. The duo has been together for 30 years and still today, when Howard mocks Gary, like he did a couple of weeks ago as you'll see below, it's gold. And Baba Booey to you all.

7. SPORTS VIDEO OF THE DAY: It was 40 years ago today that Monday Night Football had its most memorable moment ever: Howard Cosell announcing the death of John Lennon during a Patriots-Dolphins game.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Stitcher. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter and Instagram.

Published
Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

Home/Extra Mustard