FYI Friday: A potpourri, a gumbo of items you can win bets with, or just be happy to be smarter after reading

By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

          Welcome to The Central Georgia Sports Report’s new feature: FYI Friday.

Every Friday (or a day or two later), during the visit you should make every day to The Sports Report to gain knowledge, come get specific information on specific topics, answers to questions you didn’t know you had, but answers you’re glad to get.

          If you like being smarter.

1.          There was some discussion at the start of the NBA Finals regarding the participation of “small market” teams Oklahoma City and Indiana.

          Such discussions center more on an area’s ranking as a television market, not pure city or metro population.

          Indiana is 22nd and OKC 26th in TV market rankings, with 1.2 million and 755,000 TV sets.

          Memphis is last at 620,000. Atlanta is No. 8 at 2.65 million viewers and a metro population of 6.1 million.

          The last “small market” champion (1.5 million viewers or less) to win the NBA title was No. 24 San Antonio (1.03 million, 2.6 million metro) in 2013. 

2.          More from the College World Series:

The Series was held at beloved Rosenblatt Stadium from 1950-2010. The stadium sat just south of downtown, in a neighborhood.

          Expansion led to a variety of colors by section, and it seated more than 24,000 by the time it was retired. It was located next door to the Henry Doorly Zoo and Aquarium. Capacity was expanded by 10,000 seats in 2001, upping it to 23,145.

          A ‘Save Rosenblatt” campaign was waged, but after months of deliberation, the city and stadium committee chose to build a new stadium.

A new stadium, bearing no resemblance in color or personality to Rosenblatt, opened in 2011.

         The latest contract has the CWS staying in Omaha through at least 2035.