OLYMPICS
NEW YORK (AP) The Olympics in their final week were still golden for NBC. Once again, NBC’s nightly prime-time averages took the week’s top seven Nielsen slots. And NBC again left rival networks far behind in overall viewership.
But a drop in Olympics viewers compared to the previous week was notable.
So was the drop in TV viewership between the final seven nights of the Rio Olympics compared to four years ago at the London Games.
Consider the erosion from 29.1 million for the London Olympics’ 12th night, compared to 20.7 million for the same night (last Wednesday) in Rio. Or Rio’s 17 million viewers for Sunday’s closing ceremony, compared to 31 million for London.
Since 2012, viewers have gained new options and new screens for enjoying the Rio Olympics. The result: As a TV event, it clearly wasn’t the same as it’s been in past years.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Police in Rio de Janeiro have begun interrogating the first of three of Ireland’s top Olympic executives in a ticket-scalping investigation.
Secretary General Dermot Henihan was seen arriving at Rio’s police headquarters. Team leader Kevin Kilty chief and executive Stephen Martin are also expected.
Chief investigator Ronaldo Oliveira says the three agreed to answer questions after their passports, phones and laptops were recently seized in an Olympic Village raid.
Olympic Council of Ireland President Patrick Hickey was arrested last week and is being held in Rio’s Bangu prison complex as the investigation expands.
Authorities say the company Pro 10 Sports Management was created to facilitate the transfer of tickets between the Irish Olympic Committee and an unauthorized vendor who would sell them for high fees disguised as hospitality services.
GENEVA (AP) – Two days after Russia finished fourth in the Olympic medal table, its Paralympic team was barred from the next big games in Rio de Janeiro as punishment for a state-backed doping program.
Sport’s highest court upheld a decision by the International Paralympic Committee to exclude the sports superpower. It was a step the IOC declined to take when it had the chance last month.
The 267 entries which Russian Paralympic athletes earned in 18 sports for the Sept. 7-18 games in Rio will now be allocated to other nations not judged responsible for orchestrated cheating.
Russia won 36 gold medals at the 2012 Paralympics, second most in London, and was a runaway table-topping leader at its home 2014 Winter Paralympics.
PRO FOOTBALL
FRISCO, Texas (AP) – Dallas Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant will miss the next preseason game after suffering a concussion in practice.
Coach Jason Garrett said Bryant was hurt a day earlier when the receiver’s head hit the shoulder pads of safety Barry Church. Garrett says Bryant was held out of the rest of that practice and will not play Thursday night at Seattle.
On his Twitter account Tuesday, Bryant promised Cowboys fans that he is OK.
Garrett said Bryant seemed ”much better” Tuesday, and the coach doesn’t think there is a long-term concern.
BASEBALL
MILWAUKEE (AP) – A woman was struck in the left ear by a line drive down the third base line in the second inning of the Milwaukee Brewers game with the Colorado Rockies.
The game was delayed about 2 minutes after the line drive from Nick Hundley went into the first couple of rows near the photographer’s well adjacent to the Rockies dugout.
Miller Park ushers quickly called for medical assistance, and the woman was assisted for about 8 minutes before being carried out on a sitting stretcher. Once out of the seating area, the stretcher was lowered so she was lying down and she was put into an ambulance.
No further information was immediately released.
The Brewers extended the netting at Miller Park before the season started to the inside edge of each dugout. Only Kansas City, Minnesota and Washington have netting that covers the entire length of the dugout.
CINCINNATI (AP) – The Texas Rangers placed Josh Hamilton on unconditional release waivers, though they hope his surgically rebuilt left knee is healthy enough to allow him to try for a spot with the team next season.
Texas activated Hamilton off the 60-day disabled list and put him on waivers, a move that was expected. The 35-year-old outfielder had surgery on June 8 to reconstruct his ACL and repair cartilage damage. He’s hoping to be ready for spring training.
It was Hamilton’s third operation on the knee since September.
General manager Jon Daniels said during a conference call that the move had to be done before the end of August, otherwise Hamilton wouldn’t have been able to play for the Rangers until after May 15 next year under Major League Baseball’s contract rules.
Daniels had discussed the move with Hamilton, most recently on Tuesday.
DAILY FANTASY SPORTS
LAS VEGAS (AP) – Daily fantasy sports websites are trying to get legal after a series of state-level setbacks that shut them down in some parts of the country, but officials who set policy in the gambling mecca of Nevada indicated they won’t be bending too far backward for the companies.
Fan Duel and Draft Kings proposed a new category of regulation and license fees that would help Nevada – an economically small but symbolically important state – join 41 other states where the practice is up and running. Nevada determined last fall that daily fantasy sports sites qualified as gambling and needed to shut down if they didn’t have a license.
But casino heavy-hitters on Nevada’s Gaming Policy Committee expressed disappointment Tuesday with the low penalties and lack of criminal background checks in the companies’ proposal, saying it was weaker than laws passed in other states and didn’t measure up to Nevada’s rigorous gambling regulation.
