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Local Nielsen ratings snapshot (Fri.-Mon., May 27-30) -- Yu's return, Spieth's win, Thunder's comeback all part of Memorial Day weekend sports palooza

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom on Twitter
The Golden State Warriors’ Monday night Game 7 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder topped all sports attractions on a holiday weekend that also included the return of Yu Darvish and Jordan Spieth’s first Texas PGA win at The Colonial. Oh yeah, the Indy 500 also happened.

Golden State’s 96-88 closeout of the Thunder, capping the defending champ’s comeback from a 3-1 Western Conference Finals deficit, averaged 424,944 D-FW viewers on TNT, with 244,529 in the advertiser-coveted 18-to-49-year-old demographic.

Saturday night’s Game 6, also on TNT, had 311,626 total viewers and 165,136 in the 18-to-49 age range.

Saturday night also marked Darvish’s successful start for the Texas Rangers after a long rehab and Tommy John surgery. Telecast by Fox, the game started roughly one hour, 45 minutes earlier than Warriors-Thunder. And Yu’s 5-inning stint ended just before tipoff. Rangers-Pirates, which ended at 9:24 p.m., outdrew the first half of Warriors-Thunder but had a lower overall average of 290,378 total viewers. Hoops outdrew baseball throughout the night among 18-to-49-year-olds, with the Yu-powered Rangers ending up with an average of 104,798.

Sunday’s final round of the Colonial, which ended with three successive long birdies by Spieth, drew a surprisingly skimpy crowd on CBS11. The overall average was just 106,236 total viewers, with a peak audience of 184,142 for the closing 15-minute segment (4:45 to 5 p.m.). The Colonial also bogeyed with 18-to-49-year-olds, averaging just 15,879 of ‘em for the entire fourth round.

Over on Fox Sports Southwest, the competing afternoon Rangers-Pirates game fared much better with an average of 177,060 total viewers and 57,163 in the 18-to-49 motherlode.

ABC’s Sunday morning/afternoon Indy 500, which ended precisely at 2:30 p.m., pulled in an average of 99,154 total viewers and 31,757 in the 18-to-49 demographic.

Two more things on the sports front. The Rangers’ Monday Memorial night rout of the Cleveland Indians on FSS couldn’t match the big ratings for Game 7 of Warriors-Thunder. But it still ranked No. 2 in the prime-time total viewers competition with a nice-sized 177,060. That haul included 69,865 viewers in the 18-to-49 realm, which also ran second for the night. On NBC Monday night, Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals between the Pittsburgh Penguins and San Jose Sharks had a tough go with just 49,577 total viewers and 28,581 in the 18-to-49 age range.

In the local news derby arena, the four major combatants -- Fox4, NBC5, TEGNA8, CBS11 -- all took holiday exemptions throughout Memorial Day. So none of those ratings officially count.

Here’s how it went on Friday, when all four stations played for keeps.

NBC5 rolled at 10 p.m., drawing both the most total viewers and 25-to-54-year-olds (main advertiser target audience for news programming).

The Peacock also swept the 6 a.m. competitions while adding a 5 p.m. win among 25-to-54-year-olds and a 6 p.m. first in total viewers.

Fox4 took Friday’s other two golds with the most total viewers at 5 p.m. and the most 25-to-54-year-olds at 6 p.m.

Email comments or questions to: unclebarky@verizon.net