11 Minutes of action... sounds like "date night" for most couples but in actuality it's how much ACTION you get in a typical NFL game. An article in the Wall Street Journal 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.
I vote for a complete reversal:
ReplyDelete- 3 seconds of players standing around
- 11 minutes of replays
- 17 minutes of actual playing time
- 67 minutes of cheerleaders
And if your team doesn't really have cheerleaders (like the Packers), just show footage of other teams' cheerleaders in between plays.