Rate Report IV

It's Friday in New York City and the unofficial the start of Summer here in the States. Indeed, MWD '24 is upon us and with it comes four straight nights of Conference Finals games. Before we fire up the grills and head to the beach, let's have a look at the week(s) that was in the world of Rate Game!

Top Rated Games

Last Sunday brought the conclusion of Round Two in somewhat climactic fashion with a double dose of the most coveted words in Sports; Game 7. Unfortunately for yours truly, that meant the absolute unraveling of my beloved New York Knicks on the biggest of stages. So distraught was I watching Jalen Brunson fracture his hand in the 3rd quarter (because of course) that I refrained from even rating the game, thus breaking my streak of 140 consecutive rated games across the NCAA and NBA. Congrats to Indiana with the 5.9 🟡. Tough one. Thankfully the second game provided a much needed distraction, delivering an 8.7 🟢 for that battle royale between the defending champs and the upstarts from Minnesota.

Interestingly enough, the TRG of R2 goes not to a Game 7, but a Game 6. That of the epic comeback by Luka and the Mavs in their 1 point series clincher against OKC; 8.9 🟢 🏆.

When the eye test is given to Round Two as a whole, two trends emerge:

1. The Mavs & Thunder needed just one game to then go green for five straight 🟢 📈
2. The Knicks & Pacers started off hot but quickly fizzled with four straight yellows 🟡 📉

In the middle of the pack we fittingly find the Wolves and Nuggets with an albeit entertaining seven game affair (7.1 🟢) that saw the first four games won by the visiting team, and 5/7 overall. Bringing up the rear was the uninspiring, five game beatdown of the Celtics vs the Cavs. Up until Tuesday night, the Celtics managed to play in a mere two games worthy of a green light in their entire 11 game playoff run. No doubt the result of injuries to Jimmy Butler and Donovan Mitchell, the best players on each of their respective opponents. Perhaps it's no surprise then that Tuesday's opening game against the healthy (and deep) Pacers produced an 8.5 🟢 "Double Bang" ECF overtime thriller. Some are saying the Double Bang wasn't warranted, not me, but some others. For those keeping score at home, that's now eight DB's in Mike Breen's storied 30 year sports broadcasting career.

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Nice to see that Round Two maintained it's marginal improvement from Round One, with a 6.8 🟢 across 25 total games.

Last night's Pacers vs Celtics game was the 76th NBA Playoff game and 143rd overall game sent to The Vault for historical processing. Of these, just eight games (5%) have ever cracked an AVG Rating of 9.0. Very cool to see that we've established a source of truth for what an exceptional sports game looks and feels like. Hats off, Sports Fans.

2 Months

It's been 67 days since Rate Game first launched on Apple's App Store. In just a little over two months, we're seeing some incredible traction and adoption with just a single sport and two leagues 🏀. To say we're just getting started is not hyperbole. Imagine what this app will be in a year from now; with all Major American Sports, the Olympics (Men's Basketball 5x5), EPL, CFB, and full seasons of both Men's and Women's CBB 🤯. The real fun begins when we enter the second season of each respective league and can start to compare seasons, playoffs, teams etc. Not to mention the TRGs of the day, week, month, year, ALL TIME.

In 2026, when the US, Mexico, and Canada host the FIFA World Cup, we will rate games not as sports fans, but countrymen.

That has been the vision from Day 1. To everyone who's reached out to me about Boxing, UFC, Cricket, F1, Tennis, Rugby, even Curling (!) - I hear you and kindly ask for your patience. Your time will come!

Rate Game for Android?!

(Though this newsletter goes out to iOS only, an update is necessary)

It's now been two weeks, three rejections, and countless emails later and we're still in "review" with Google Play's App team. Currently we await the fate of our latest appeal and I wish I could say that I'm confident it gets done on attempt number four, but that would be a flat out lie. The truth is I have no idea. For some reason they're claiming that the app description of "Rate Sports games you watch" is misleading. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that Google would have more stringent policies than Apple when it comes to their respective app marketplaces, but here we are. Like LeBron vs the Celtics or Jordan vs the Pistons, we'll soon beat the system and persevere. Significant progress does not come without slight setbacks!

As always, please hit me with your feedback on the channels below👇 and have a great weekend 🫡