A Grip on Sports: If you have entire Saturday to waste, you can do that this week in front of the TV set digesting hours and hours of Kentucky Derby coverage

A GRIP ON SPORTS • The Kentucky Derby takes about 2 minutes from when the starting gate opens until the winner passes into immortality. A 2-minute race with 6½ hours of televised runup on NBC. That’s a ratio of 195-1 on the side of blather over action. Seems about right.

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• Hats. Odds. Juleps, whatever that is. Interviews with the competitors that can’t – as opposed to those in other sports that won’t – talk. Weather reports, strategy and history. Everything you could after what to know covered in painstaking detail.

Has to be, right? The oldest continuous sporting event on the continent demands it, even though horse racing has fallen out of the continent’s pantheon of top sports. Heck, the world’s.

Not the Derby, though. It is still Louisville’s top slugger. And enough people slog through the pregame to watch the 120 seconds or so it is still worth it to NBC.

Last year 16.7 million folks watched Mystik Dan’s victory, the most this century. Actually, the most since Sunday Silence earned his roses in 1989 on ABC.

The race, in its 151st year, has somehow kept its relevance while the sport itself continues its long slide into the background among a media market dominated by football, hoops and the occasional other sport.

NBC’s coverage starts at 12:30 p.m. USA Network has the whole day devoted to the race, starting at 9 a.m. The race itself? It is scheduled to start at 3:57 p.m. on the West Coast. And end before 4. Just in time for happy hour.

• What else will supply happiness for sports fans on TV this weekend?

For your Husky friends, maybe Friday night’s televised spring game on the Big Ten Network (6:30). Coach Jedd Fisch is promising a lot of fun, even as most major-conference programs pivot away from the game format.

For those of you who enjoy the NBA (no, not you Laker fans), a couple first-round series are coming down to the wire. The Warriors will try to finish off Houston at home tonight (6, ESPN) while Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets host the surging Clippers on Saturday (4:30 p.m., TNT) in a decisive seventh game.

The Winnipeg Jets led the NHL in points during the regular season but have their hands full with St. Louis. The Blues, who were 20 points behind the Jets in the Western Conference’s Central Division will try to force a seventh game tonight (5, TNT). And there will be a seventh game between host Dallas and Colorado on Saturday (5 p.m., ABC).

The Mariners’ play the last half of April led to a few smiles throughout the Northwest, mainly because the pitching-rich franchise actually won with offense. The M’s hope to continue both – winning and offense – in May, starting Friday night (5 PDT, Root) in Texas. The series continues Saturday (4:05 first pitch) and Sunday (11:35 a.m.) on Root as well.

If you are one of those people who enjoy watching Scottie Scheffler hit a golf ball – yes, my hand is up – then CBS’ coverage of the CJ Cup Byron Nelson from McKinney, Texas, starts Saturday and Sunday at noon. After Scheffler’s tournament-best 61 Thursday, there is a good chance he’ll be in the mix on the weekend.

• When the WHL playoffs began in late March, it was pretty well assumed the finals would pit the two best regular-season teams, Medicine Hat in the East, Everett in the West.

One of them came through. And it wasn’t the Silvertips.

Their loss in the West semifinals to Portland opened a door. And the Spokane Chiefs were more than happy to burst through it. They finished a semifinal sweep of the Winterhawks on Thursday night in Portland, once again outscoring the hosts, this time 6-4.

That sets up a WHL final with the Tigers, who won the East regular-season title by 14 points and have lost just once in the postseason.

On the line? A Memorial Cup berth, something the Chiefs haven’t earned since 2008, when they won their second Cup. Medicine Hat was in the finals the year before (losing 3-1 to host Vancouver), appeared in the tournament in 2004 and won back-to-back titles in 1987 and 1988.

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WSU: There are two Pac-12 legacy schools working together to rebuild the conference. Oregon State and Washington State. Of the two, who seems to be better positioned for future success in the ever-changing landscape of college athletics? Jon Wilner tries to answer that question today. Spoiler alert, he didn’t give the nod to the Cougars. … Elsewhere in the (current, old and future) Pac-12 and the nation, John Canzano has some news on the media front. … Wilner also keeps track of the former Pac-12 schools in new conferences. He has a look at the Big 12 quarterbacks for next season, with a former conference school boasting the best. … We already mentioned the Washington spring game is tonight. We have this preview of it to pass along. … Oregon held its final scrimmage of the spring last night. And showed off its strengths. … Will Colorado have much in the way of draft picks next season? … A Utah football player returned after five years to earn his degree. … UCLA is making a couple big changes. … Colorado State has added experience at receiver. … In basketball news, the Oregon State men added another shooter. … What does Oregon’s schedule look like? … UCLA’s women have picked up another star in the portal, this one from Utah.

Idaho: Former Vandal basketball star Gordon Herbert, known as Gord these days, has been named head coach of Canada’s national team. The kid from Penticton, British Columbia, first crossed the border back in the late 1970s to play at North Idaho College. A stint with Don Monson’s Vandals, including the Sweet Sixteen season of 1981-82, followed. He’s been coaching internationally for years and led Germany to the World Cup gold medal in 2023. … Around the Big Sky, Brennan Marion said he was going to revamp the Sacramento State football roster. He has done that to a greater degree than any program in the nation. … A couple Montana athletes will continue playing professionally, at least for a while. … The Weber State men will get a chance to play Utah in hoops.  

Preps: Cheryl Nichols has the roundup of Thursday’s action.

Chiefs: Dave Nichols was in Portland last night, covering Spokane’s series-clinching victory. We linked his story above and here as well. … Dave also spent some time examining how the Chiefs have been winning. With offense.

Indians: The pitching was excellent for Spokane once again Thursday night in Tri-City. The Indians posted a 3-1 victory, the 500th in minor league baseball for manager Robinson Cancel.

Zephyr: With a season that spans the winter, Spokane has had plenty of time to fine tune its game. John Allison explains how the Zephyr has sharpened its execution and have found success as the weather has warmed.

Bloomsday: Greg Lee has a look at the elite fields for Sunday’s race, starting off with a female group that could challenge the course record.

UFC: It’s a big weekend for Spokane fighter Juliana Miller, as Charlotte McKinley tells us in this story.

Mariners: Despite injuries to key offensive players, the M’s continue to hit the ball and score runs. Can that continue? … The injuries may open spots for other minor leaguers, including Tyler Locklear, who had a short stint last season. … I heard something on a podcast this week about the MLB strike zone. And how it is being called. How it could be called in the future with computer-assisted umpiring. Turns out, the accuracy of the human calls is improving, even as MLB gives the umpires less of a break. Oddly, the players aren’t happy about it.

Seahawks: Grey Zabel met the media yesterday. And he can’t wait to get started. … We linked the Times’ story yesterday on seven intriguing undrafted free agents. It ran in the S-R this morning. … There are other thoughts on those folks to pass along as well. … How do John Schneider’s peers feel about his draft?

Sounders: Jordan Morris’ hamstrings haven’t been cooperating the past couple years. The forward will miss at least six weeks with another injury to the same spot that sidelined him in March. … One Sounder expresses his joy all the time.

Storm: Seattle’s first pick in this year’s draft is expected to be in town this weekend but won’t play on Sunday.

Reign: Could host Seattle actually have an edge tonight against Kansas City?

Horse racing: The names of two horses in Saturday’s Derby makes us laugh. … So does all the betting advice thrown our way. Few people are successful betting horse racing for long using numbers and calculations. Inside info. That’s the winning ticket.

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• Headed across the mountains today. Leaving the dog, the cat and the house in good hands. Missing Bloomsday for the, I don’t know, 25th consecutive year? It’s not a record, I know. Heck, it doesn’t even come close to my dad’s record of missing 1,068 consecutive Ed Sullivan Shows, something he was prouder of than any of his many entertainment-related accomplishments, including an appearance in a Billy Crystal movie. Until later …