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For me there are a lot of sports more interesting than football, but this article researches something I have suspected for awhile. That a 60 minute game that takes 31/2 or more hours to play only has 11 actual minutes of playing time. Now this is some funny shite. Makes my high priced tickets even more worth it.

BTW if this was already posted sorry.


11 Minutes of Action


By DAVID BIDERMAN

Football fans everywhere are preparing to settle in for the NFL's biggest and most electric weekend of the season—a four-game playoff marathon that will swallow up at least 12 hours of broadcast time over two days.

But here's something even dedicated students of the game may not fully appreciate: There's very little actual football in a football game.
According to a Wall Street Journal study of four recent broadcasts, and similar estimates by researchers, the average amount of time the ball is in play on the field during an NFL game is about 11 minutes.

In other words, if you tally up everything that happens between the time the ball is snapped and the play is whistled dead by the officials, there's barely enough time to prepare a hard-boiled egg. In fact, the average telecast devotes 56% more time to showing replays.

So what do the networks do with the other 174 minutes in a typical broadcast? Not surprisingly, commercials take up about an hour. As many as 75 minutes, or about 60% of the total air time, excluding commercials, is spent on shots of players huddling, standing at the line of scrimmage or just generally milling about between snaps. In the four broadcasts The Journal studied, injured players got six more seconds of camera time than celebrating players. While the network announcers showed up on screen for just 30 seconds, shots of the head coaches and referees took up about 7% of the average show.

If you think the networks are a little too fond of cheerleaders, you may be mistaken: In these broadcasts, only two networks showed cheerleaders at all. And when they did, they were only on camera for an average of three seconds. "We make it a point to get Dallas cheerleaders on, but otherwise, it's not really important," says Fred Gaudelli, NBC's Sunday Night Football producer. "If we're doing the Jets, I couldn't care less."

Football—at least the American version—is the rare sport where it's common for the clock to run for long periods of time while nothing is happening. After a routine play is whistled dead, the clock will continue to run, even as the players are peeling themselves off the turf and limping back to their huddles. The team on offense has a maximum of 40 seconds after one play ends to snap the ball again. A regulation NFL game consists of four quarters of 15 minutes each, but because the typical play only lasts about four seconds, the ratio of inaction to action is approximately 10 to 1. (At the end of a game, if one team has a lead and wants to prevent the other team from scoring again, standing around and letting the clock run down becomes a bona fide strategy)

I'm not nimble enough to get it down to 11 minutes, but I can usually get through a DVRed football game in about a half hour.

93henfan wrote:I'm not nimble enough to get it down to 11 minutes, but I can usually get through a DVRed football game in about a half hour.

But you are more than likely in a lot better shape...

I don't see what is so funny. This seems pretty accurate to me. I've always known that there is very little real action during a football game. I have trouble watching NFL games because of all the commercials. It drives me crazy. Didn't realize 60% of the broadcasts were of commercials. That is sickening to me.
Teams A scores. Commercials. Team A kicks off to Team B. Commercials. That drives me nuts when they do that!!

That's the marketing and the game of football. It will never change. What can ya do....

As opposed to what, baseball?

Rob Iola wrote:As opposed to what, baseball?

There is a lot of boring shite out there no doubt. But the point is the so called beloved American game lasts a whole 10:47 min. Not to mention the whole 3-4 hours it takes to play that 10:47. I think this is some assed shite.

No wonder Americans hate soccer so much, since the ball is in play 95% of the time.

polsongrizz wrote:For me there are a lot of sports more interesting than football, but this article researches something I have suspected for awhile. That a 60 minute game that takes 31/2 or more hours to play only has 11 actual minutes of playing time. Now this is some funny shite. Makes my high priced tickets even more worth it.

BTW if this was already posted sorry.
11 Minutes of Action
By DAVID BIDERMAN
...............................

Would have been easier to just post the link instead of the whole article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 61406.html

93henfan wrote:I'm not nimble enough to get it down to 11 minutes, but I can usually get through a DVRed football game in about a half hour.

During the football season I'll often have a game on in the background while I'm doing something, halfway paying attention. But whenever I actually sit down to watch a game, I almost NEVER watch it live. I always fast forward/skip over the commercials (I do this with whatever I'm watching) and the same with halftime. If I'm not pressed I still might take 1.5-2 hrs to watch a game. Oftentimes, in addition to fast forwarding through commercials and halftime, I'll skip forward during the about 30+ seconds deadtime between plays, and will watch the game in about 30-45 minutes. Can watch a hell of a lot more football that way.

I haven't spent 3 hrs watching a game (or watched commercials or a full halftime) in about 3 years. More and more people are probably doing similar.

CrackerRiley wrote:I don't see what is so funny. This seems pretty accurate to me. I've always known that there is very little real action during a football game. I have trouble watching NFL games because of all the commercials. It drives me crazy. Didn't realize 60% of the broadcasts were of commercials. That is sickening to me.
Teams A scores. Commercials. Team A kicks off to Team B. Commercials. That drives me nuts when they do that!!

That's the marketing and the game of football. It will never change. What can ya do....

Not 60%. ABout 60 minutes of 185. Still sickening.

"....So what do the networks do with the other 174 minutes in a typical broadcast? Not surprisingly, commercials take up about an hour...."

Soccer and hockey, most bang for your buck.

BDKJMU wrote:

polsongrizz wrote:For me there are a lot of sports more interesting than football, but this article researches something I have suspected for awhile. That a 60 minute game that takes 31/2 or more hours to play only has 11 actual minutes of playing time. Now this is some funny shite. Makes my high priced tickets even more worth it.

BTW if this was already posted sorry.
11 Minutes of Action
By DAVID BIDERMAN
...............................

Would have been easier to just post the link instead of the whole article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 61406.html

Guess you didn't read the article then because I posted about about 1/3 of it dumb ass.

JayJ79 wrote:No wonder Americans hate soccer so much, since the ball is in play 95% of the time.

I actually like soccer, but just because the ball's in play for 95% of the time doesn't mean there's real action to keep your eyes glued to the set. There's a lot of dead time in soccer even with the ball in play.

polsongrizz wrote:For me there are a lot of sports more interesting than football, but this article researches something I have suspected for awhile. That a 60 minute game that takes 31/2 or more hours to play only has 11 actual minutes of playing time. Now this is some funny shite. Makes my high priced tickets even more worth it.

This surprises me. Polsongrizz starting a topic called 11 minutes of fun and it's ACTUALLY about sports!

BTW, Sports is the only thing he could do that would take 11 minutes, even added up for a whole year!

What was sex with your wife like last year?

Oh wait...I though we were doing Carnac jokes. Never mind.

GannonFan wrote:

JayJ79 wrote:No wonder Americans hate soccer so much, since the ball is in play 95% of the time.

I actually like soccer, but just because the ball's in play for 95% of the time doesn't mean there's real action to keep your eyes glued to the set. There's a lot of dead time in soccer even with the ball in play.

No, not really, there may be less action on the side of the field opposite of the play at that time. But unless there is an injury stop, the ball is always in play.

VictorG wrote:

polsongrizz wrote:For me there are a lot of sports more interesting than football, but this article researches something I have suspected for awhile. That a 60 minute game that takes 31/2 or more hours to play only has 11 actual minutes of playing time. Now this is some funny shite. Makes my high priced tickets even more worth it.

This surprises me. Polsongrizz starting a topic called 11 minutes of fun and it's ACTUALLY about sports!

BTW, Sports is the only thing he could do that would take 11 minutes, even added up for a whole year!

You can add???

polsongrizz wrote:

GannonFan wrote:
I actually like soccer, but just because the ball's in play for 95% of the time doesn't mean there's real action to keep your eyes glued to the set. There's a lot of dead time in soccer even with the ball in play.

No, not really, there may be less action on the side of the field opposite of the play at that time. But unless there is an injury stop, the ball is always in play.

I'm not doubting that the ball is in play, but a lot of times in soccer, if the ball is in play it doesn't guarantee that anything exciting is happening. Like I said, even with the ball in play, at times it's still dead time.

GannonFan wrote:

polsongrizz wrote: No, not really, there may be less action on the side of the field opposite of the play at that time. But unless there is an injury stop, the ball is always in play.

I'm not doubting that the ball is in play, but a lot of times in soccer, if the ball is in play it doesn't guarantee that anything exciting is happening. Like I said, even with the ball in play, at times it's still dead time.

Yep. I still use my DVR for soccer. Basically if they're farting around at midfield it's on fast forward. Don't really push play until one team gets it into the other's third.

polsongrizz wrote:

BDKJMU wrote:
Would have been easier to just post the link instead of the whole article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 61406.html

Guess you didn't read the article then because I posted about about 1/3 of it dumb ass.

No dumbass I'd read the article last week so was no sense scrolling through all that you posted. It still would have been simpler for people to just post the link.

BDKJMU wrote:

polsongrizz wrote: Guess you didn't read the article then because I posted about about 1/3 of it dumb ass.

No dumbass I'd read the article last week so was no sense scrolling through all that you posted. It still would have been simpler for people to just post the link.

Either way I didn't post the whole article as you claimed. Perhaps some hadn't seen it yet and it wasn't posted here as far I could see. I guess I hadn't heard that we are only allowed to post links. I also didn't know that if you had read the article then that was all that counted. I guess from here on out you will never post any part of a story just a link. Good for you...

GannonFan wrote:

polsongrizz wrote: No, not really, there may be less action on the side of the field opposite of the play at that time. But unless there is an injury stop, the ball is always in play.

I'm not doubting that the ball is in play, but a lot of times in soccer, if the ball is in play it doesn't guarantee that anything exciting is happening. Like I said, even with the ball in play, at times it's still dead time.

True, I will give you that. but if we were only interested in watching when something exciting were happening then we could whittle down sports in general to about 2.67 min, except in the case of the Browns, Raiders and Chiefs then you have around .67 sec of interesting play.

A logically related question is whether it makes sense to allow anyone other than officials to stop the clock. Why even have a clock if you are going to allow the competitors to stop it? I know this is how we have always done it in this country, but when you step back from tradition and really think about it, how does it improve the game?

I've known Pols for about 8 years.

During this time, all the games, the countless tailgates we've visited together, and all our conversations...trying to understand whatever point he was trying to get across during the above time frame, adds up to just about 11 minutes...and I'm bein' generous here!

Grizo406 wrote:I've known Pols for about 8 years.

During this time, all the games, the countless tailgates we've visited together, and all our conversations...trying to understand whatever point he was trying to get across during the above time frame, adds up to just about 11 minutes...and I'm bein' generous here!

HHHmmm isn't that about the same time frame it took for that fancy computer to break down once you found a loan shark to front you the $$$$$???