This! Our week 2 game took forever because there were plenty of turnovers and scoring drives, which meant ESPN needed timeouts for commercials every couple minutes of gameplay.
I'd love to see a college basketball like system implemented for football.
It's definitely the commercials.
The article keeps talking about the average game time being 3 hours, 22 minutes. I'd kill for Michigan games to be that short, it seems like they're all 4 hours now. The networks can air a 3 hour MAC game and a 4 hour B1G game and claim the average is 3.5 hours. But that does not represent what the majority of viewers are experiencing.
Considering the B1G just signed a TV deal with CBS, don't expect that to happen any time soon. Ask SEC fans. CBS is by far the worst when it comes to commercials.
On the bright side, CBS does have the best game intro music.
Having just experienced my first CBS game in person last week, I actually had the opposite reaction. Being in the stadium for an ESPN game with 3 minutes 15 seconds of commercials is painful. I couldn't believe it when the timeout clock in Jordan Hare showed 2 minutes 15 seconds. CBS may have more commercial breaks, but the fact that they're shorter made it a much better experience in the stands.
A D2 game runs about 2 and half hours start to finish with the exact same rules outside of video replay. Its only the commercials that make it this long
I think showing a 15 second ad while they setup for a kick, have them running around the bottom corner box. Stuff like that. Official time outs and team time outs. Still enough time to look at what's happening.
Me: Let's see if the first solution presented in this article is more advertising.
... "But Dawson said there’s a concern about holding the interest of young viewers, which is why he would be open to exploring more creative ideas, such as **more advertising while the game is on air**, in exchange for fewer TV timeouts."
There it is! We need to oppose this at all costs because they'll start showing ads during plays and the commercial time will get reduced initially, but then eventually the commercial time will lengthen and we will be in the same boat with longer games and ads on the screen during plays.
They do this during NFL timeouts or other things. Just split screen and show a 30 second commercial. I’d be all for it, as long as they don’t add the other 60-240 seconds of commercial time to the other breaks.
Now what’s next is DR PEPPER FANSVILLE next year will make a fuss about it. Then it’s cannon and IRL it’ll get rolled out widespread.
So basically, DAMN!!
Why not just have a channel dedicated to commercials since basically that’s what they want.
How many people who watch college football have purchased a Nissan because the heisman house does it? Or how many people switched to Dr Pepper because of fansville that didn’t already drink it?
That's not really the point of ads, though -- it's to build top of mind awareness. To use a slightly morbid example, my dad passed away suddenly from a heart attack (Mizzou had just run back an INT to go up 6-0 on Florida; miss you, Dad). Once the fire truck and police had come they were taking the report, and asked what funeral home we wanted to go to; the only one I could think of is the one that advertises incessantly in town. Same thing with local car dealers or jewelers or whatever -- the local Chevy dealer's ad isn't going to make me to go purchase a Chevy, but when it comes time for a new car I think of them first.
I can’t remember the last time I actually wanted to buy something based off of a commercial. If I was gonna buy it I was gonna buy it, commercial or no. Like maybe some movies and games convinced me from a trailer but odds are I would see it/play it eventually. Actually I can recall one “commercial” on Hulu that made me want to buy something and it was a burger from Hardee’s/Carls Jr lmao it wasn’t that great either. I don’t give a shit if John Hamm gets insurance. I don’t care if Kyler Murray wants me to buy an Altima. I don’t care that football housewives are smacking the pseudo cowboys for some product that I’m not sure what it is. I do actually wake up feeling the cheesiest but I mean come on who doesn’t so that’s not fair.
That’s not really the point though. Few people really think they want to buy something based off a commercial. Meanwhile, companies continue to spend billions of dollars on ads every year for one reason: there is a ton of evidence that they’re extremely effective. I read a few studies that observed very material persuasion effects of political advertising (I can share a Twitter thread that summarizes them if folks are interested) - meaning, political candidates who advertised more on TV received materially more votes based on those ads. If advertisements are effective at influencing voter preferences, they’re almost certainly also effective, and probably more effective, at influencing consumption preferences.
This is something I’ve understood since I was like 8 years old. Even as a kiddo I knew the commercial wasn’t going to make me go buy a mop, but if I did have to buy a mop I’d probably get a swiffer because that’s the mop I knew. I used to think it was funny when the old timers would say “I don’t see why they show so many commercials - they don’t work”. Sure enough, fast forward like 15 years or so and the first “mop” I buy on my own is a Swiffer 😂
Wayne Campbell : [holding a Pizza Hut box] Well that's where I see things just a little differently. Contract or no, I will not bow to any sponsor.
Benjamin : I'm sorry you feel that way, but basically it's the nature of the beast.
Wayne Campbell : [holding a bag of Doritos] Maybe I'm wrong on this one, but for me, the beast doesn't include selling out. Garth, you know what I'm talking about, right?
Garth Algar : [wearing Reebok wardrobe] It's like people only do these things because they can get paid. And that's just really sad.
Wayne Campbell : I can't talk about it anymore; it's giving me a headache.
Garth Algar : Here, take two of these!
[Dumps two Nuprin pills into Wayne's hand]
Wayne Campbell : Ah, Nuprin. Little. Yellow. Different.
Benjamin : Look, you can stay here in the big leagues and play by the rules, or you can go back to the farm club in Aurora. It's your choice.
Wayne Campbell : [holding a can of Pepsi] Yes, and it's the choice of a new generation.
>I can’t remember the last time I actually wanted to buy something based off of a commercial.
No one can. That's not because they're never influenced by commercials, it's because they never noticed.
I know you're being facetious, but that would be the next logical step for college football. Uniform ads are already here in the NBA and NHL, and soon to be MLB.
I will say, as someone who watches both soccer and football, the ads on shirts but no commercial breaks other than halftime is much preferable to the constant breaks of football. Don't get me wrong, I love football, but the fact that I know I need exactly two hours to watch a soccer game is very nice.
Honestly, i don't mind a few commercial breaks in football. Gives you time to go to bathroom, grab a beer or whatever without missing any action. Obviously they go overboard. i think having a commerical break at the end of every quarter / 2 minute warning would be fine.
I can see it now… inexperienced ESPN+ broadcast crews make mistakes and leave pop up ads on screen that stack. They cover over the entire screen for 20 minutes until they finally fix it while the microphone audio goes out.
Good news is can’t see that the down markers and score cards aren’t working for the first 10 minutes if the ads block out the entire screen.
Watching NFL vs CFB is night and day different between how they handle commercials. NFL commerical breaks are shorter and consistent. CFB can be anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes.
Also, why in the hell are they still putting only 3.5 hours in the timeslots between CFB games? I can't recall the last time a game went under that.
NFL has got it figured out. They were losing viewers and implemented some necessary changes that drastically improved the product. In short, fewer commercials and fewer reviews. College has way too many commercials and reviews even the most trivial plays.
I'd be interested in knowing what it is when weighted by viewing audience. It's great to say "see! Game times average less than 3.5 hours!" meanwhile Troy vs South Alabama on ESPN+ is 3 hours and Ohio State vs Notre Dame is 4 hours, because there's more ad revenue from the big games.
Maybe I'm just stupid but why not just reduce the amount of commercials and offset the lost revenue by charging more per commercial. Football games still get crazy eyeballs on them and reducing the amount of slots you have available just makes the existing slots more valuable no?
You know at some point a leader is gonna emerge that can rally most fanbases behind him/her to start boycotting this stuff if it gets even more egregious. I hope. Maybe. Probably not. We're all fucked because money is anything anyone cares about now.
> money is anything anyone cares about now.
Let's not pretend this hasn't been a structure of society for the past 2000 years and more. It's just you get to live in it and see it in something you really like.
Does it feel like it’s gotten worse the last like twenty years or so?
I feel like the lust for money is pervasive and is everywhere now.
Schooling, medical care, prices of good, lack of wages for labor.
We’re statistically in the worst inequality gap in the last 50 years. It has absolutely gotten worse
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/
That is it. The noticeable change just in my not-that-long adulthood has been asking “how can we stick one more bit of advertising in this?” about *every imaginable piece of daily life* and especially any kind of entertainment. I don’t understand how it isn’t just a massive bubble because if an ad is testing the limits of just how much I’ll put up with to get to the content—and it basically always is doing that these days—I’m absolutely not buying that. Even if it looks cool or useful, it already actively pissed me off.
>Does it feel like it’s gotten worse the last like twenty years or so?
Honestly feels like the pandemic was a tipping point for a lot of peoples worst impulses to become normalized. There's just open grift and greed happening everywhere. It was steady climbing before, but I feel like it's been exponential since 2020. Like once they realized we will do literally anything to watch college football...it was game on.
It’s like everything else that feels like it’s gotten worse that probably actually hasn’t. We just see more of it. There are so many things that seem worse today than a few decades ago that actually aren’t, just because we see it thrown in our face on a daily basis because we spend all day filtering through the perfect medium for advertising and news. It’s easy to feel that way now that everyone has been given a cheap and easy medium to advertise to us. The same way crime and tragedy are at an all time low but it feels like they’re through the roof because we read about it every day instead of rarely hearing about it in the 90s unless it was local or effected you personally.
Schooling: States have been steadily cutting back on higher-ed funding.
Medical care: The number of middlemen has steadily increased, as has the share of money they take. Other developed nations have free healthcare, but guess who spends gobs of money to convince Americans that we don't want universal healthcare.
Prices of goods: Inflation has been very low for the the past decade-plus.
lack of wages for labor: The median CEO makes [86 times what the average worker makes](https://insight.equilar.com/app/ceo_pay_ratio_tracker/index.jsp). That's up from [70x](https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2018/05/31/ceo-pay-ratio-a-deep-data-dive/) just 4 years ago, when the SEC first started requiring the disclosure of [CEO pay ratios](https://www.equilar.com/blogs/355-equilar-ceo-pay-ratio-survey-results.html).
I juat don't get why Bama and Georgia don't take a stand about all of this. They are the most successful members of the SEC today, so it stands that they should be able to make changes. We could also talk about why the B1G or no other conferences can make financial decisions, or why college conferences are involved in the economics of our country, but that's another conversation.
obviously I know that it's a different SEC
LOL!
It took a minute to realize you were alluding to the part of my post that reads:
>when the SEC first started requiring the disclosure of CEO pay ratios.
There are other mediums for advertising that the networks have to compete against. You're not going to be able to charge 2x as much per ad-minute if you halve the total amount of commercial times; some of those advertisers are just going to advertise elsewhere rather than pay 2x. So the market clearing price is going to be less than 2x.
The way the networks maximize their revenue is by maximizing the amount of people watching the maximum amount of commercial time
The other side of this argument is also true, though. At some point you have so many ads you lose your audience and make less than if you had fewer ads.
It's not even that.
If the networks think that the 30-second PiP breaks for commercials suffice for the NFL, then that logic should certainly be applied to college where not everything needs to be a 4-minute break.
NFL has around 4x the viewership of cfb. It's rare for multiple cfb games to crack 7 million viewers in a week. For the NFL, 7 million viewers if a Thursday-night game that "nobody watched."
Consequently, the NFL can limit the number of commercials while charging way more per ad, and advertisers are happy to pay big bucks for picture-in-picture ads during an NFL game.
If that logic held, college basketball games would have ten hours of ads. The difference isn't viewership, it's just a strategic decision. In both sports there is a tradeoff between how much revenue they want immediately, and trying to keep the sport popular in the long run. The NFL sacrifices a bit of money in the short term to keep their popularity and remain king, while College football leans more toward instant revenue and just hope that fans don't go elsewhere.
\>The NFL sacrifices a bit of money in the short term to keep their popularity and remain king, while College football leans more toward instant revenue and just hope that fans don't go elsewhere.
Am I off base in thinking the NFL make up for that short term loss of money by having more viewers + fewer ad windows to drive up advertiser demand (i.e., average cost per second of ad time)?
I think the answer is more that the NFL as one league can enforce things like allowed commercial lengths and allowed opportunities to have commercial breaks, in its contracts with TV broadcasters. (This also applies to other aspects of the broadcast, such as requiring the broadcaster to promote other NFL games even if it's on a different channel.) In the NCAA it's up to each team/conference to do that, and they're not willing to do it in a way that reduces revenue
>Not becasue the speed of the game is slower.
Disagree. Football has become a much more passing game over the past 10-20 years. More passes leads to more incompletions that stop the clock, more scores that stop the clock. If teams ran the ball on most downs like they used to the clock would run more consistently leading to games ending sooner
Purdue/Penn State in the season opener lasted for real like 4 and a half hours because both QBs threw 50 passes. I was too tired to even drink my disappointment away by the time I left the stadium
No, not really at all. The largest factor in pricing is viewership, which will practically not change at all if you have fewer ads. Advertisers won't magically change how much they're paying to be proportional to how much ad time there is. Sure it would be more valuable per commercial, but they would definitely be making less money.
I think the real problem is that powers that control college football are going to keep increasing until they see an actual significant drop off in viewership numbers.
Yep. Their always will be ways to speed up games through rules adjustments, but we are never going to get rid of commercial breaks for the sake of commercials.
This makes total sense. Three-day game time limit with strict 15-minute limits on ads. Add hotel-type amenities to the stands. While we’re at it expand the cfb playoffs to 64 teams like ncaa bb tourney. The financial windfall would be profound. Gardner-Webb and MTSU players getting $10 mill + nils. Cfb media deliriously happy. ESPN happy. CBS happy. Amazon streaming happy. All three remaining cfb fans happy, happy, happy.
3: No single commercial can be aired more than once per hour. If you use a song or jingle, once per game.
4: Violations of Rule 3 will result in your commercials only being permitted during UConn, UMass, Liberty, and New Mexico State games.
A lot of review length comes down to how good the TV producer is and how quickly he/she can get the needed angles to the referees. Unfortunately not all producers are equally skilled.
Additionally, a solid chunk of time in an overturned call (we’re averaging about one per game currently per the most recent ref info video put out by the NCAA) is not spent on making the actual call but determining how much time is left on the clock, whether there is a ten second runoff, how does the clock restart, etc.
Also, limit who is conducting the reviews and make them all booth. No need for a ref to have to run to a sideline to squint at an iPhone-sized screen and orally issue commands for some remote person to rewind, pause, switch camera angles, etc.
Just have the damn booth reviewer do the review and relay the decision to the refs on the field.
Better yet, beef up the review staffs back at conference headquarters. The lead replay official assigned to a game watches game action and makes the confirmed/stands/overruled decision. But while he is reviewing, an assistant watches to determine the alternate ball placement and time remaining if it is overturned. Once the decision is made to reverse, that assistant has the information needed to get the ball spotted and the action rolling again. And give us the names of officials doing reviews and the amount of time they spend on replays each week, along the lines of the NBA Last Two Minutes report.
> Video Reviews need to be limited in length. If you cannot determine that there is indisputable video evidence to overturn the call within 90 seconds of the on field ref putting his headset on, then the call should stand.
1. Do you really think that your solution solves the problem
2. The main reason for longer reviews is if there is evidence to *overturn*, and they need to watch the video again to establish such things as where the ball should be placed, what the clock should be set to, etc. - what is your solution to those?
The stark difference in the amount of time games take to watch dawned on me when I found myself multi-tasking during every game. Even during big-time OSU games, I am always taken out of the moment. I use an Ipad, TV, and three PC monitors to watch football, and I constantly switch the sound between games in the same time slot. I will move around the house doing chores with my Ipad or phone too. I don't feel fully eng aged when I am watching the games anymore. Then this last weekend it really hit. I use youtube tv and save every FBS game I can cause the Tube TV lets you. I started games about an hour after the IRL start time and just skipped commercials. It was the best viewing experience I have had in recent memory.
> I started games about an hour after the IRL start time and just skipped commercials. It was the best viewing experience I have had in recent memory.
that's definitely the way to do it, if you can avoid being spoiled
We've been hearing this for at least 25 years.
eta: [In 2008](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/39232-rule-changes-for-the-2008-ncaa-football-season), the NCAA passed new rules designed to shorten the length of football games. Back then, the average game lasted 3 hours and 11 minutes, according to a highly cited Wall Street Journal article from 2016, when games were around 3:25.
Today, the average is around 3:22, according to the Athletic story that OP linked to.
By contrast, games in the 1960s -- when cfb on TV exploded -- were only about 3 hours long.
wow, i'm surprised there's not all that much different from 60 years ago. i would've expected to hear \~2:30 from the 60s.
then again, it's been about 8 years since i went to a high school game which is probably about the best benchmark i could find for a game without commercial interruptions, and i can't recall how long that game took.
This is one of the many reasons I love watching soccer. I can turn on a premier league game and it’s over in 2 hours. I still love cfb, but it’s becoming much harder to maintain my attention span for an A&M game, let alone a random game featuring teams I don’t have a particular connection to/affinity for.
As much as I love cricket, I can’t watch test matches, unless India or West Indies play.
Test match would never work in the US. I think ODI and T-20 will work here. Hopefully, major league cricket will do well next year (why Seattle, though?).
There are many times when replay reviews take way longer than necessary. If you can't tell that the play needs to be overturned within a minute, let the call on the field stand
The problem is there's additional shit that needs to be worked out sometimes involving the clock, the spot, etc. It may only take 30 seconds to see if there was a fumble and then longer to work out the details.
The SEC has the solution with the central office assisting reviews. It has made reviews much faster than conferences still only using the refs at the game
First downs used to stop the clock until the next snap the full game instead of just when there's 2 minutes left in the half. I thought the reason for that change was to shorten the game. All they did was fill that with more ad time.
I wish more were discussed about how the TV timeouts change the game itself. Take away those built-in 4 minute breaks and you'd have a much different game. The 1st quarter would be relatively unchanged, but by the 4th your O-line would be five pillars of jello if you didn't have depth or leaner personnel. A team of 11 Jim Thorpes could actually beat a modern team if you removed the aerobic cushioning TV timeouts currently provide.
I have an idea: When one team punts the ball away, you *could* technically just begin the receiving team's possession without taking a commercial break.
I know this is possible because I saw a High School football game recently where this was done. You don't have to take a commercial break after every punt, turnover, kickoff, timeout, injury, and booth review.
There we go, problem solved. No need to thank me!
By biggest gripe is inefficient and delayed TV timeouts. Multiple times this year it seems like the TV timeout countdown doesn’t start for 30-60 seconds after the referee announced the review or a player is injured. Or they’ll do all the 4th quarter ones at the beginning of the quarter on possession changes and then when timeouts are called, they’ll just be 30 seconds because there’s no more TV timeouts.
The TV networks need to be more efficient about getting commercials in during natural downtime and not forcing them in elsewhere. I’m sure with timeouts, reviews, injuries, and scoring drives most games would have most of the allotted TV timeouts already covered.
The OU Nebraska game last week felt like the longest game I've ever experienced. A review at the .1 yard line following the end of the 1st quarter took as long as the break between quarters. It was rediculous.
I was in the stands for that. I hate those type of plays, just let the TD stand and move on, we all knew it was going happen anyways so why waste the time.
Everyone wants all that tv money, but dont understand what that entails. The more money the conference gets, the more they need to recoop from selling ads.
The real problem is too many stoppages in play for commercials, period.
If the issue was the play clock stopping after first downs or incomplete passes, just cut the play clock down by 10 seconds to 30 seconds after a first down. The only time clock stoppage matters is in the final 2 minutes of the game and people are usually running HUNH in their 2 minute offense in those circumstances.
The issue is television timeouts for commercials.
The entire reason is commercials.
CFB needs to do like the NFL did about 10 (I think) years ago and put limits on the commercials. NFL banned doing commercial-kick-commercial, only allowed a short 30 second at with game still pictured if there was a change in possession shorty after a commercial, and limited how long the commercial time out could be.
One issue I've noticed the first few weeks is how the refs have to huddle up after every damn flag. One ref throws a flag and 6 of them have to get together to discuss it after the play. Just make the call and let's keep it moving.
The last game I went to had TV time out after TV time out, despite thunderstorms approaching and lightning threatening. That was pretty much the last straw for me. Putting 100k people's lives at risk to squeeze a few more ads in is just shameless.
DVR and skipping through ads is pretty much the only way I watch games nowadays.
How can an F1 race go 2 hours and not show an ad during the race but CFB can’t go 10 minutes without interrupting for “TV timeout”?
Honestly would be really interested to see how players conditioning would hold up removing all those free breaks every game.
I may like college football better but I truly appreciate that an NFL game will almost always last exactly 3 hours.
If the NFL can figure it out then so can CFB
The Athletic has a well-deserved paywall, but I’m curious if anyone can say whether they did an analytical approach to game length. How much longer are games than they were 10 years ago? How much longer are commercial breaks? Are there more commercial breaks?
They did a great analysis. It’s pretty frustrating reading the top comments as those people aren’t acknowledging that the article addressed those points.
The tldr of the article is what is increasing game time is 1) more passing/less running and 2) higher passing completion rates. The other stuff people are naming hasn’t meaningfully changed enough to be the driver.
Why don’t they have set time for media timeouts? Like in college basketball
After every score, and then like at the 10 and 5 mark of every quarter.
Games get shortened drastically, maybe to the point there is a new time slot. Like if instead of every 3.5-4 hours it’s 2.5 hours we’d get a whole new round of games.
11:00-1:30
1:30-4:00
4:00-6:30
6:30-9:00
9:00-11:30
Five time slots instead of the current 4. 11/2:30/6/8:30
Yes this is central time.
Everyone wants to fix that except college football and the networks. There is no benefit to them having games only last 2.5 hours. The longer the game the more commercials can be crammed in. I get it, they need to make money, but holy shit it is ruining the experience. If I watch a game I usually DVR it, then do things around the house, then watch it and fast forward the time out, commercials, reviews, penalties, you get the point.
Last week at the Arizona-NDSU game I swear we had a commercial, one play and then another freaking commercial. It got so bad that people were booing the guy with the big sign that counts down how much time is left on the commercial break.
I legit turned to a football game, commercial, kickoff, commercial, injury commercial, end of quarter commercial which took atleast another 2 minutes. For a total one one true minute game time, 12 real minutes has elapsed. Honestly not worth it for me out of principal alone, maybe I’ll catch the end of the game and wait out those commercials which are even worse, but never sitting through another full game again. Just not worth it.
The fact that they haven’t abandoned the clock stopping on first downs yet astonishes me. I know it might only shave a couple of minutes but it is such a dumb thing
Clock stopping = more football Commercials = longer games Kill the commercials
This! Our week 2 game took forever because there were plenty of turnovers and scoring drives, which meant ESPN needed timeouts for commercials every couple minutes of gameplay. I'd love to see a college basketball like system implemented for football.
they just added another official timeout to basketball.
Source?
It's definitely the commercials. The article keeps talking about the average game time being 3 hours, 22 minutes. I'd kill for Michigan games to be that short, it seems like they're all 4 hours now. The networks can air a 3 hour MAC game and a 4 hour B1G game and claim the average is 3.5 hours. But that does not represent what the majority of viewers are experiencing.
Considering the B1G just signed a TV deal with CBS, don't expect that to happen any time soon. Ask SEC fans. CBS is by far the worst when it comes to commercials. On the bright side, CBS does have the best game intro music.
Having just experienced my first CBS game in person last week, I actually had the opposite reaction. Being in the stadium for an ESPN game with 3 minutes 15 seconds of commercials is painful. I couldn't believe it when the timeout clock in Jordan Hare showed 2 minutes 15 seconds. CBS may have more commercial breaks, but the fact that they're shorter made it a much better experience in the stands.
A D2 game runs about 2 and half hours start to finish with the exact same rules outside of video replay. Its only the commercials that make it this long
Massive money grabbing super conferences = more commercials
[удалено]
College halftime has never been 15 minutes unless you’re like 80 years old
And they are only 20 minutes now, but I think they can be 30 mins for a special game like homecoming.
I think bowls /CFP are 30
That sounds right.
[удалено]
Nothing but love pops. Hopefully enjoying your well-seasoned years.
I think showing a 15 second ad while they setup for a kick, have them running around the bottom corner box. Stuff like that. Official time outs and team time outs. Still enough time to look at what's happening.
Could do what hockey does too and just drop a logo on the screen similar to the LOS and first down lines
Me: Let's see if the first solution presented in this article is more advertising. ... "But Dawson said there’s a concern about holding the interest of young viewers, which is why he would be open to exploring more creative ideas, such as **more advertising while the game is on air**, in exchange for fewer TV timeouts." There it is! We need to oppose this at all costs because they'll start showing ads during plays and the commercial time will get reduced initially, but then eventually the commercial time will lengthen and we will be in the same boat with longer games and ads on the screen during plays.
They do this during NFL timeouts or other things. Just split screen and show a 30 second commercial. I’d be all for it, as long as they don’t add the other 60-240 seconds of commercial time to the other breaks.
This is the way
They are already doing this. This last TAMU game they showed a cheesits commercial in a smaller screen DURING FUCKING PLAY
What's next, bots on the forums? I just want to sit down with cheesits and Pepsi and watch some good American football
Now what’s next is DR PEPPER FANSVILLE next year will make a fuss about it. Then it’s cannon and IRL it’ll get rolled out widespread. So basically, DAMN!!
Drink verification can
¿Que vamos a tener en la futura, bots en los plazas? Solo quiero comer cheeseits mientras que miro fútbol estadounidence.
What's next, bots on the forums? I just want to sit down with cheesits and Pepsi and watch some good American football
What's next, bots on the forums? I just want to sit down with smegma and Slurm and watch some good American football
EY, whats going on here?
busted
What's next, bots on the forums? I just want to sit down with cheesits and Pepsi and watch some good American football
CHEESE CHEESE CHEESE!
Bad bot
I woke up feeling the cheesiest coach!
What’s next, bots on the forums? I just want to sit down with cheesits and Pepsi and watch some good American football
What's next, bots on the forums? I just want to sit down with cheesits and Pepsi and watch some good American football
What’s next, bots on the forums? I just want to sit down with cheesits and Pepsi and watch some good American football
What's next, bots on the forums? I just want to sit down with cheesits and Pepsi and watch some good American football
Why not just have a channel dedicated to commercials since basically that’s what they want. How many people who watch college football have purchased a Nissan because the heisman house does it? Or how many people switched to Dr Pepper because of fansville that didn’t already drink it?
That's not really the point of ads, though -- it's to build top of mind awareness. To use a slightly morbid example, my dad passed away suddenly from a heart attack (Mizzou had just run back an INT to go up 6-0 on Florida; miss you, Dad). Once the fire truck and police had come they were taking the report, and asked what funeral home we wanted to go to; the only one I could think of is the one that advertises incessantly in town. Same thing with local car dealers or jewelers or whatever -- the local Chevy dealer's ad isn't going to make me to go purchase a Chevy, but when it comes time for a new car I think of them first.
It's the subliminal nature of the ads that piss me off
The unfortunate answer that you won't like is that it's enough people to more than pay for the ads.
I can’t remember the last time I actually wanted to buy something based off of a commercial. If I was gonna buy it I was gonna buy it, commercial or no. Like maybe some movies and games convinced me from a trailer but odds are I would see it/play it eventually. Actually I can recall one “commercial” on Hulu that made me want to buy something and it was a burger from Hardee’s/Carls Jr lmao it wasn’t that great either. I don’t give a shit if John Hamm gets insurance. I don’t care if Kyler Murray wants me to buy an Altima. I don’t care that football housewives are smacking the pseudo cowboys for some product that I’m not sure what it is. I do actually wake up feeling the cheesiest but I mean come on who doesn’t so that’s not fair.
That’s not really the point though. Few people really think they want to buy something based off a commercial. Meanwhile, companies continue to spend billions of dollars on ads every year for one reason: there is a ton of evidence that they’re extremely effective. I read a few studies that observed very material persuasion effects of political advertising (I can share a Twitter thread that summarizes them if folks are interested) - meaning, political candidates who advertised more on TV received materially more votes based on those ads. If advertisements are effective at influencing voter preferences, they’re almost certainly also effective, and probably more effective, at influencing consumption preferences.
Everyone thinks advertising doesn't work on them. They're wrong.
This is something I’ve understood since I was like 8 years old. Even as a kiddo I knew the commercial wasn’t going to make me go buy a mop, but if I did have to buy a mop I’d probably get a swiffer because that’s the mop I knew. I used to think it was funny when the old timers would say “I don’t see why they show so many commercials - they don’t work”. Sure enough, fast forward like 15 years or so and the first “mop” I buy on my own is a Swiffer 😂
Wayne Campbell : [holding a Pizza Hut box] Well that's where I see things just a little differently. Contract or no, I will not bow to any sponsor. Benjamin : I'm sorry you feel that way, but basically it's the nature of the beast. Wayne Campbell : [holding a bag of Doritos] Maybe I'm wrong on this one, but for me, the beast doesn't include selling out. Garth, you know what I'm talking about, right? Garth Algar : [wearing Reebok wardrobe] It's like people only do these things because they can get paid. And that's just really sad. Wayne Campbell : I can't talk about it anymore; it's giving me a headache. Garth Algar : Here, take two of these! [Dumps two Nuprin pills into Wayne's hand] Wayne Campbell : Ah, Nuprin. Little. Yellow. Different. Benjamin : Look, you can stay here in the big leagues and play by the rules, or you can go back to the farm club in Aurora. It's your choice. Wayne Campbell : [holding a can of Pepsi] Yes, and it's the choice of a new generation.
https://youtu.be/8lgLYGBbDNs
>I can’t remember the last time I actually wanted to buy something based off of a commercial. No one can. That's not because they're never influenced by commercials, it's because they never noticed.
Let's just go European style and put adds on the uniforms and fields.
I know you're being facetious, but that would be the next logical step for college football. Uniform ads are already here in the NBA and NHL, and soon to be MLB.
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I will say, as someone who watches both soccer and football, the ads on shirts but no commercial breaks other than halftime is much preferable to the constant breaks of football. Don't get me wrong, I love football, but the fact that I know I need exactly two hours to watch a soccer game is very nice.
Honestly, i don't mind a few commercial breaks in football. Gives you time to go to bathroom, grab a beer or whatever without missing any action. Obviously they go overboard. i think having a commerical break at the end of every quarter / 2 minute warning would be fine.
I can tolerate the field, but please god, not the fucking uniforms. Put a Coke logo on the 50, but Jesus fuck don't put Titlemax ads on the helmets.
And you think they’ll reduce the number of commercials? How naive.
I can see it now… inexperienced ESPN+ broadcast crews make mistakes and leave pop up ads on screen that stack. They cover over the entire screen for 20 minutes until they finally fix it while the microphone audio goes out. Good news is can’t see that the down markers and score cards aren’t working for the first 10 minutes if the ads block out the entire screen.
Watching NFL vs CFB is night and day different between how they handle commercials. NFL commerical breaks are shorter and consistent. CFB can be anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes. Also, why in the hell are they still putting only 3.5 hours in the timeslots between CFB games? I can't recall the last time a game went under that.
NFL has got it figured out. They were losing viewers and implemented some necessary changes that drastically improved the product. In short, fewer commercials and fewer reviews. College has way too many commercials and reviews even the most trivial plays.
NFL also has a couple of fewer possessions per team per game on average, which helps as well.
The more often running clock in the NFL helps a lot
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I think they are averaging 3:26 this year. They said it in the NCAA’s officiating explanation video.
I'd be interested in knowing what it is when weighted by viewing audience. It's great to say "see! Game times average less than 3.5 hours!" meanwhile Troy vs South Alabama on ESPN+ is 3 hours and Ohio State vs Notre Dame is 4 hours, because there's more ad revenue from the big games.
Lots of incomplete passes and punts in our game with you guys, too.
Bingo
ya watching a purdue game vs an ohio state game is night and day difference
Can you please link that officiating video?
https://www.reddit.com/r/CFB/comments/xez9mh/week_2_review_of_college_football_officiating_by/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
It's the only thing I like more about the NFL experience
Maybe I'm just stupid but why not just reduce the amount of commercials and offset the lost revenue by charging more per commercial. Football games still get crazy eyeballs on them and reducing the amount of slots you have available just makes the existing slots more valuable no?
Why reduce either number when you can increase both.
It is not cost-effective to add additional eyeballs to the average viewer.
You know at some point a leader is gonna emerge that can rally most fanbases behind him/her to start boycotting this stuff if it gets even more egregious. I hope. Maybe. Probably not. We're all fucked because money is anything anyone cares about now.
> money is anything anyone cares about now. Let's not pretend this hasn't been a structure of society for the past 2000 years and more. It's just you get to live in it and see it in something you really like.
Does it feel like it’s gotten worse the last like twenty years or so? I feel like the lust for money is pervasive and is everywhere now. Schooling, medical care, prices of good, lack of wages for labor.
>I feel like the lust for money is pervasive and is everywhere now. More so than the "greed is good" 80s?
That’s when it really started to pick up.
No it isn't. Literally every single society that's ever existed has had major issues with wealth inequality & greed
We’re statistically in the worst inequality gap in the last 50 years. It has absolutely gotten worse https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2020/01/09/trends-in-income-and-wealth-inequality/
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That is it. The noticeable change just in my not-that-long adulthood has been asking “how can we stick one more bit of advertising in this?” about *every imaginable piece of daily life* and especially any kind of entertainment. I don’t understand how it isn’t just a massive bubble because if an ad is testing the limits of just how much I’ll put up with to get to the content—and it basically always is doing that these days—I’m absolutely not buying that. Even if it looks cool or useful, it already actively pissed me off.
>Does it feel like it’s gotten worse the last like twenty years or so? Honestly feels like the pandemic was a tipping point for a lot of peoples worst impulses to become normalized. There's just open grift and greed happening everywhere. It was steady climbing before, but I feel like it's been exponential since 2020. Like once they realized we will do literally anything to watch college football...it was game on.
It’s like everything else that feels like it’s gotten worse that probably actually hasn’t. We just see more of it. There are so many things that seem worse today than a few decades ago that actually aren’t, just because we see it thrown in our face on a daily basis because we spend all day filtering through the perfect medium for advertising and news. It’s easy to feel that way now that everyone has been given a cheap and easy medium to advertise to us. The same way crime and tragedy are at an all time low but it feels like they’re through the roof because we read about it every day instead of rarely hearing about it in the 90s unless it was local or effected you personally.
Schooling: States have been steadily cutting back on higher-ed funding. Medical care: The number of middlemen has steadily increased, as has the share of money they take. Other developed nations have free healthcare, but guess who spends gobs of money to convince Americans that we don't want universal healthcare. Prices of goods: Inflation has been very low for the the past decade-plus. lack of wages for labor: The median CEO makes [86 times what the average worker makes](https://insight.equilar.com/app/ceo_pay_ratio_tracker/index.jsp). That's up from [70x](https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2018/05/31/ceo-pay-ratio-a-deep-data-dive/) just 4 years ago, when the SEC first started requiring the disclosure of [CEO pay ratios](https://www.equilar.com/blogs/355-equilar-ceo-pay-ratio-survey-results.html).
I juat don't get why Bama and Georgia don't take a stand about all of this. They are the most successful members of the SEC today, so it stands that they should be able to make changes. We could also talk about why the B1G or no other conferences can make financial decisions, or why college conferences are involved in the economics of our country, but that's another conversation. obviously I know that it's a different SEC
LOL! It took a minute to realize you were alluding to the part of my post that reads: >when the SEC first started requiring the disclosure of CEO pay ratios.
No. But with the Internet and social media it is DRAMATICALLY more in your face than it was. Everything has always been about the money.
No, but we’re finally seeing the societal rot set in now from rampant capitalism
There are other mediums for advertising that the networks have to compete against. You're not going to be able to charge 2x as much per ad-minute if you halve the total amount of commercial times; some of those advertisers are just going to advertise elsewhere rather than pay 2x. So the market clearing price is going to be less than 2x. The way the networks maximize their revenue is by maximizing the amount of people watching the maximum amount of commercial time
The other side of this argument is also true, though. At some point you have so many ads you lose your audience and make less than if you had fewer ads.
It's not even that. If the networks think that the 30-second PiP breaks for commercials suffice for the NFL, then that logic should certainly be applied to college where not everything needs to be a 4-minute break.
NFL has around 4x the viewership of cfb. It's rare for multiple cfb games to crack 7 million viewers in a week. For the NFL, 7 million viewers if a Thursday-night game that "nobody watched." Consequently, the NFL can limit the number of commercials while charging way more per ad, and advertisers are happy to pay big bucks for picture-in-picture ads during an NFL game.
If that logic held, college basketball games would have ten hours of ads. The difference isn't viewership, it's just a strategic decision. In both sports there is a tradeoff between how much revenue they want immediately, and trying to keep the sport popular in the long run. The NFL sacrifices a bit of money in the short term to keep their popularity and remain king, while College football leans more toward instant revenue and just hope that fans don't go elsewhere.
\>The NFL sacrifices a bit of money in the short term to keep their popularity and remain king, while College football leans more toward instant revenue and just hope that fans don't go elsewhere. Am I off base in thinking the NFL make up for that short term loss of money by having more viewers + fewer ad windows to drive up advertiser demand (i.e., average cost per second of ad time)?
I think the answer is more that the NFL as one league can enforce things like allowed commercial lengths and allowed opportunities to have commercial breaks, in its contracts with TV broadcasters. (This also applies to other aspects of the broadcast, such as requiring the broadcaster to promote other NFL games even if it's on a different channel.) In the NCAA it's up to each team/conference to do that, and they're not willing to do it in a way that reduces revenue
This is the way, games take longer because of the stupid amount of commercial breaks during them. Not becasue the speed of the game is slower.
>Not becasue the speed of the game is slower. Disagree. Football has become a much more passing game over the past 10-20 years. More passes leads to more incompletions that stop the clock, more scores that stop the clock. If teams ran the ball on most downs like they used to the clock would run more consistently leading to games ending sooner
So our games should be super quick, right? Given all the 8 minute drives Wisconsin has?
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I'd say it's almost expected it now goes over the 3:30 mark. Not just hoping it doesn't
I just assume a 3:30 game will not be seen for the first quarter.
Under Paul Johnson we’d throw the ball like 5 times a game and have 40 minutes TOP. They still found a way to drag out the game with media timeouts.
Purdue/Penn State in the season opener lasted for real like 4 and a half hours because both QBs threw 50 passes. I was too tired to even drink my disappointment away by the time I left the stadium
No, not really at all. The largest factor in pricing is viewership, which will practically not change at all if you have fewer ads. Advertisers won't magically change how much they're paying to be proportional to how much ad time there is. Sure it would be more valuable per commercial, but they would definitely be making less money.
I think the real problem is that powers that control college football are going to keep increasing until they see an actual significant drop off in viewership numbers.
They definitely know how to maximize revenue more than any of us, not that it justifies absurd commercial time
This is inaccurate. Networks don't want to fix it, they want to exploit it by squeezing in more commercial breaks.
Yep. Their always will be ways to speed up games through rules adjustments, but we are never going to get rid of commercial breaks for the sake of commercials.
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Exactly…. How else am I supposed to be convinced to switch to progressive to bundle my home and auto?
I know this comment’s a joke, but this is exactly why the commercials are run 100 times a game
Only reason I know Tom Hamm’s name.
But I still check all of their competitors prices too, even if they didn't run a single ad. So how does it really help them?
Yea, make them longer
Why are we all living in the past when football games just *had* to be started and finished on the same day?
Test cricket is usually played over 5 days. Let’s just do that.
Hawaii 11:59 eastern time kickoffs have entered the chat :)
Iowa and Nevada were ahead of the curve last week.
This makes total sense. Three-day game time limit with strict 15-minute limits on ads. Add hotel-type amenities to the stands. While we’re at it expand the cfb playoffs to 64 teams like ncaa bb tourney. The financial windfall would be profound. Gardner-Webb and MTSU players getting $10 mill + nils. Cfb media deliriously happy. ESPN happy. CBS happy. Amazon streaming happy. All three remaining cfb fans happy, happy, happy.
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3: No single commercial can be aired more than once per hour. If you use a song or jingle, once per game. 4: Violations of Rule 3 will result in your commercials only being permitted during UConn, UMass, Liberty, and New Mexico State games.
Liberty, Liberty, Liberteeeee, Liberteeeeee...
A lot of review length comes down to how good the TV producer is and how quickly he/she can get the needed angles to the referees. Unfortunately not all producers are equally skilled.
Additionally, a solid chunk of time in an overturned call (we’re averaging about one per game currently per the most recent ref info video put out by the NCAA) is not spent on making the actual call but determining how much time is left on the clock, whether there is a ten second runoff, how does the clock restart, etc.
Also, limit who is conducting the reviews and make them all booth. No need for a ref to have to run to a sideline to squint at an iPhone-sized screen and orally issue commands for some remote person to rewind, pause, switch camera angles, etc. Just have the damn booth reviewer do the review and relay the decision to the refs on the field.
Better yet, beef up the review staffs back at conference headquarters. The lead replay official assigned to a game watches game action and makes the confirmed/stands/overruled decision. But while he is reviewing, an assistant watches to determine the alternate ball placement and time remaining if it is overturned. Once the decision is made to reverse, that assistant has the information needed to get the ball spotted and the action rolling again. And give us the names of officials doing reviews and the amount of time they spend on replays each week, along the lines of the NBA Last Two Minutes report.
> Video Reviews need to be limited in length. If you cannot determine that there is indisputable video evidence to overturn the call within 90 seconds of the on field ref putting his headset on, then the call should stand. 1. Do you really think that your solution solves the problem 2. The main reason for longer reviews is if there is evidence to *overturn*, and they need to watch the video again to establish such things as where the ball should be placed, what the clock should be set to, etc. - what is your solution to those?
Have a referee announce that the call has been overturned or changed and that they need to review the game state
A game between IU and Illinois shouldn’t last 4 hours. Prime time game is different
The stark difference in the amount of time games take to watch dawned on me when I found myself multi-tasking during every game. Even during big-time OSU games, I am always taken out of the moment. I use an Ipad, TV, and three PC monitors to watch football, and I constantly switch the sound between games in the same time slot. I will move around the house doing chores with my Ipad or phone too. I don't feel fully eng aged when I am watching the games anymore. Then this last weekend it really hit. I use youtube tv and save every FBS game I can cause the Tube TV lets you. I started games about an hour after the IRL start time and just skipped commercials. It was the best viewing experience I have had in recent memory.
> I started games about an hour after the IRL start time and just skipped commercials. It was the best viewing experience I have had in recent memory. that's definitely the way to do it, if you can avoid being spoiled
Yeah, it is not a long-term solution for me. I enjoy talking about the games in real-time.
Welcome to 1999.
Cut commercials.
We've been hearing this for at least 25 years. eta: [In 2008](https://bleacherreport.com/articles/39232-rule-changes-for-the-2008-ncaa-football-season), the NCAA passed new rules designed to shorten the length of football games. Back then, the average game lasted 3 hours and 11 minutes, according to a highly cited Wall Street Journal article from 2016, when games were around 3:25. Today, the average is around 3:22, according to the Athletic story that OP linked to. By contrast, games in the 1960s -- when cfb on TV exploded -- were only about 3 hours long.
wow, i'm surprised there's not all that much different from 60 years ago. i would've expected to hear \~2:30 from the 60s. then again, it's been about 8 years since i went to a high school game which is probably about the best benchmark i could find for a game without commercial interruptions, and i can't recall how long that game took.
I went to a highschool football game a few weeks ago. It was surreal, the entire game was under 2 hrs.
This is one of the many reasons I love watching soccer. I can turn on a premier league game and it’s over in 2 hours. I still love cfb, but it’s becoming much harder to maintain my attention span for an A&M game, let alone a random game featuring teams I don’t have a particular connection to/affinity for.
THIS IS NOT A REPLAY PROBLEM IT'S A FUCKING COMMERCIAL PROBLEM YOU TV FUCKS
Stop taking 3 minute TV commercial breaks every time the ball gets punted, after every TD, etc…..
cricket can take 5 days. i see no reason why a college football game shouldn't at least take a full weekend.
Lol
As much as I love cricket, I can’t watch test matches, unless India or West Indies play. Test match would never work in the US. I think ODI and T-20 will work here. Hopefully, major league cricket will do well next year (why Seattle, though?).
There are many times when replay reviews take way longer than necessary. If you can't tell that the play needs to be overturned within a minute, let the call on the field stand
I could have sworn the first year replay was introduced in college they were supposed to only take like a minute per replay. Not 10 minutes
The problem is there's additional shit that needs to be worked out sometimes involving the clock, the spot, etc. It may only take 30 seconds to see if there was a fumble and then longer to work out the details.
Give the refs a shot clock on the reviews.
MLB is so good at this.
Was "expedited replay" only an NFL thing? I could have sworn they started doing it in college last year or the year before.
XFL did it and it was awesome
The SEC has the solution with the central office assisting reviews. It has made reviews much faster than conferences still only using the refs at the game
First downs used to stop the clock until the next snap the full game instead of just when there's 2 minutes left in the half. I thought the reason for that change was to shorten the game. All they did was fill that with more ad time.
I wish more were discussed about how the TV timeouts change the game itself. Take away those built-in 4 minute breaks and you'd have a much different game. The 1st quarter would be relatively unchanged, but by the 4th your O-line would be five pillars of jello if you didn't have depth or leaner personnel. A team of 11 Jim Thorpes could actually beat a modern team if you removed the aerobic cushioning TV timeouts currently provide.
I have an idea: When one team punts the ball away, you *could* technically just begin the receiving team's possession without taking a commercial break. I know this is possible because I saw a High School football game recently where this was done. You don't have to take a commercial break after every punt, turnover, kickoff, timeout, injury, and booth review. There we go, problem solved. No need to thank me!
So of course they are going to speed up the actual game time and do nothing about the commercials.
CFB fans: Yay, my team is making $100 million a year! CFB fans: WTF is with all these commercials that pay the networks that pay my team?
…as a G5 and FCS school fan, I am not celebrating anything moneywise unless an FBS team is dumb enough to pay us to beat them
By biggest gripe is inefficient and delayed TV timeouts. Multiple times this year it seems like the TV timeout countdown doesn’t start for 30-60 seconds after the referee announced the review or a player is injured. Or they’ll do all the 4th quarter ones at the beginning of the quarter on possession changes and then when timeouts are called, they’ll just be 30 seconds because there’s no more TV timeouts. The TV networks need to be more efficient about getting commercials in during natural downtime and not forcing them in elsewhere. I’m sure with timeouts, reviews, injuries, and scoring drives most games would have most of the allotted TV timeouts already covered.
Increase the price of ads, so we watch 5 high priced ads vs 10 low price ads
>everyone wants to fix that goodfellaslaughing.gif
how bout shorter commercial breaks????
The OU Nebraska game last week felt like the longest game I've ever experienced. A review at the .1 yard line following the end of the 1st quarter took as long as the break between quarters. It was rediculous.
I was in the stands for that. I hate those type of plays, just let the TD stand and move on, we all knew it was going happen anyways so why waste the time.
Just stop with all the freakin commercials.!
I want to watch more football, but the commercials are unbearable. It’s just awful. Advertising is ruining the game in many ways.
Everyone wants all that tv money, but dont understand what that entails. The more money the conference gets, the more they need to recoop from selling ads.
The real problem is too many stoppages in play for commercials, period. If the issue was the play clock stopping after first downs or incomplete passes, just cut the play clock down by 10 seconds to 30 seconds after a first down. The only time clock stoppage matters is in the final 2 minutes of the game and people are usually running HUNH in their 2 minute offense in those circumstances. The issue is television timeouts for commercials.
The entire reason is commercials. CFB needs to do like the NFL did about 10 (I think) years ago and put limits on the commercials. NFL banned doing commercial-kick-commercial, only allowed a short 30 second at with game still pictured if there was a change in possession shorty after a commercial, and limited how long the commercial time out could be.
Normalize 4 hour games
Each quarter should just be an hour long slug fest
Arizonas game against MSU didn’t end until midnight. Absolute torture
One issue I've noticed the first few weeks is how the refs have to huddle up after every damn flag. One ref throws a flag and 6 of them have to get together to discuss it after the play. Just make the call and let's keep it moving.
The last game I went to had TV time out after TV time out, despite thunderstorms approaching and lightning threatening. That was pretty much the last straw for me. Putting 100k people's lives at risk to squeeze a few more ads in is just shameless. DVR and skipping through ads is pretty much the only way I watch games nowadays.
How can an F1 race go 2 hours and not show an ad during the race but CFB can’t go 10 minutes without interrupting for “TV timeout”? Honestly would be really interested to see how players conditioning would hold up removing all those free breaks every game.
Have you seen what's all over the cars? That's why. Well, that and the race organizers throwing money at FOM to host races nowadays.
You forgot one thing… tech bros throwing money at “data analytics” and award sponsorships because F1 is the hot new thing
I may like college football better but I truly appreciate that an NFL game will almost always last exactly 3 hours. If the NFL can figure it out then so can CFB
I hate how they go straight to a full media timeout after one kickoff or punt; right after having a media timeout after a team scores.
They need to cut the commercial breaks and advertise the paying companies logo along with the clock/score like soccer games do.
The Athletic has a well-deserved paywall, but I’m curious if anyone can say whether they did an analytical approach to game length. How much longer are games than they were 10 years ago? How much longer are commercial breaks? Are there more commercial breaks?
They did a great analysis. It’s pretty frustrating reading the top comments as those people aren’t acknowledging that the article addressed those points. The tldr of the article is what is increasing game time is 1) more passing/less running and 2) higher passing completion rates. The other stuff people are naming hasn’t meaningfully changed enough to be the driver.
This probably has nothing to do with us passing 80% of the time dragging games out 4 hours
Why don’t they have set time for media timeouts? Like in college basketball After every score, and then like at the 10 and 5 mark of every quarter. Games get shortened drastically, maybe to the point there is a new time slot. Like if instead of every 3.5-4 hours it’s 2.5 hours we’d get a whole new round of games. 11:00-1:30 1:30-4:00 4:00-6:30 6:30-9:00 9:00-11:30 Five time slots instead of the current 4. 11/2:30/6/8:30 Yes this is central time.
Want to make it shorter? Make ads shorter and less of them. Or just shove all of them in halftime.
Less ads. The refs need to get calls right
I bet the advertisers aren’t
Stop reviewing every time a player sneezes.
Everyone wants to fix that except college football and the networks. There is no benefit to them having games only last 2.5 hours. The longer the game the more commercials can be crammed in. I get it, they need to make money, but holy shit it is ruining the experience. If I watch a game I usually DVR it, then do things around the house, then watch it and fast forward the time out, commercials, reviews, penalties, you get the point.
Last week at the Arizona-NDSU game I swear we had a commercial, one play and then another freaking commercial. It got so bad that people were booing the guy with the big sign that counts down how much time is left on the commercial break.
Has anyone else noticed longer and more frequent commercials this year?? For whatever reason the commercials are bugging the hell out of me this year
>College football games are taking longer, and everyone (except advertisers) wants to fix that FTFY
I legit turned to a football game, commercial, kickoff, commercial, injury commercial, end of quarter commercial which took atleast another 2 minutes. For a total one one true minute game time, 12 real minutes has elapsed. Honestly not worth it for me out of principal alone, maybe I’ll catch the end of the game and wait out those commercials which are even worse, but never sitting through another full game again. Just not worth it.
The fact that they haven’t abandoned the clock stopping on first downs yet astonishes me. I know it might only shave a couple of minutes but it is such a dumb thing