O'Donnell: Arlington Park fans can take some comfort in so-so TV ratings of the '23 Kentucky Derby

TO THE REMAINING FANS of racing at Arlington Park, there could have been a dandy fantasy daily double on Kentucky Derby Day last weekend.

First leg, Larry Rivelli's Chicago-basted Two Phil's wins the 149th Run for the Roses and any who care have high-cash wagers on the chestnut 3-year-old.

Second leg, former jockey Jerry Bailey concludes NBC's marathon 7 1/2-hour telecast with the surprise closer" Oh and by the way. Churchill Downs Incorporated is going out of business!"

A quaking Northwest Highway would have been waken up with echoes jeering the nasty CDI name.

But all of that is now only make believe.

INSTEAD, THE AP FAITHFUL will have to take solace in the fact that the 2023 Derby - pockmarked by odd horse deaths in its run-up - drew the lowest May audience for the classic since 2008.

NBC's thoroughly pedestrian production averaged only 14.8M viewers. That low stride of high-stirupped boys peaked with the 16.6M who watched Two Phil's second-place finish behind the magic-free Mage.

The dip in viewership was noteworthy because:

• NBC allotted so much time to the "Groundhog's Day" event on its main network; and,

• The Peacock Network essentially had the sports TV waves all to itself on Saturday The only pop cultural competition of any kind came earlier in the day when King Charles III - the purse-lipped chap who gives monarchies a boring name - was coronated.

Lame king, laborious NBC Derby Day coverage - a Saturday double made in a smug entertainment blast furnace.

THERE'S NO QUESTION THAT Churchill Inc. has a whole lot of bad karma spread across diminished racing parts of America.

There's also no question that the farther mainstream America gets behind the racing curtain, the greater the chance those common folks will realize what an antiquated carny game it all is.

In a dozen Derbies covered live and in person, one northwest suburban Insouciant still maintains that the most memorable moment was finding his first pint of Graeter's coconut chocolate chip in the freezer aisle of an all-night Kroger's on Bardstown Road.

All the rest was like NBC's telecast of the 149th Kentucky Derby.

Fit for a boring new king.

STREET-BEATIN':

The greed of CDI must be catching - Rich Peck reports that Hawthorne's Players Pub OTB in Prospect Heights was charging $7 to park on Derby Day and $10 to access its outdoor patio area. This at a place where mosquitoes used to turn themselves in rather than face random no-pest strips. ...

Blackhawks business maven Jaime Faulkner is working overtime to sell the perception of massive ticket demand since the team's "win" in the recent NHL draft lottery. Maybe Jenner Block can bolster Faulkner's billowy claims with data culled from a fresh "independent investigation."

Eddie Olczyk's contributions got smothered in NBC's overkill of the 2023 Kentucky Derby. But reports will not go away that he isn't in nirvana over his move to the broadcast booth of the Seattle Kraken. A reconciliation and return to the Bleakhawks would be considered a "W" for the invisible Rocky Wirtz. ...

New phrase to cover the Cubs, the White Sox and their play in glaringly weak Central Divisions: Mid-Major League Baseball (M-MLB). By the time David Ross and the Wigglies face the Cardinals in London on June 24, Willson Contreras may be in play only as a visiting barman at a Tottenham pub. ...

Nothing but highest cheers for Alex Caruso and his selection to the All-NBA Defensive First Team. He is an old-style Bull. Caruso would have been a rotation player on the Jerry Sloan-Norm Van Lier group and on either of Michael Jordan's three-peat masterpieces. From a team classicist, there is scant greater praise. ...

The coaching salary of West Virginia's Bob Huggins is being sliced by $1M after his slobbery anti-Catholic, anti-gay slur on Cincinnati's WLW-AM. If WVU president E. Gorden Gee really wanted to meaningfully sanction "Huggie Bear," he'd keep the obnoxious tub away from the free hotel buffets.

And Paul "Pookie" Benno, on the rough week of Patrick Mahomes: "First he has to do "Riders Up!" at the Kentucky Derby and then he finds out the Chiefs will be playing the Dolphins instead of the Bears in Frankfurt next November."

• Jim O'Donnell's Sports and Media column appears Sunday and Thursday. Reach him at jimodonnelldh@yahoo.com. All communications may be considered for publication.