ESPN may have found a successful plan for bringing in viewers to the ESPY's: Feature rappers as your emcees for the night. Drake seems to have been a good choice for the program, as social media references to the ceremony were at an all-time high, seemingly thanks to the host.
According to Twitter Reverb, a tweet-tracking tool, 718,418 tweets were posted during the broadcast that mentioned both Drake and the ESPY's. The site also provided a graph showing peaks where the two subjects were at their peaks. The most popular moment featuring Drake was went into a performance of the song "Sterling Never Loved Us," touching on the racist tirade from former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling that shook the NBA during April. That performance garnered 20,325 per minute during its brief air time.
Other popular moments featuring Drake during the night: Another new satire song performed by the emcee, "Side Pieces," that comments on the attractive girlfriends and wives that dwell court side. The mention of Vivian Stiviano, the woman to whom Sterling addressed his rant, may have caused that song to rack up the social media mentions, as it brought in 19,550 tweets per minute. Another Drake-fake titled "Honorable Mentions," gathered 13,351 tweets per minute, perhaps thanks to a perceived shot aimed at Macklemore.
Our favorite moment, a spoof on both rap and athletic beefing that featured Clippers forward Blake Griffin and Drake's onetime enemy Chris Brown, gathered "only" 7,600 tweets per minute (despite being excellent).
The ESPY's may have found its Neil Patrick Harris, the celebrity Tonys host that always brings in a big draw.
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