Saturday, January 16, 2010

FINALLY, Study Validates That Football is a Waste of Time


11 minutes.

The time it takes you to boil water.

The number of minutes it takes to warm up your car in the frigid Chicago winter months.

The amount of time it takes to get your drink from Starbucks on a good day.

11 minutes. 660 seconds. Approximately the time it takes me to finish a blog post.

Where am I going with this? What is so significant about 11 minutes, you may ask? Well, do I have news for you. Apparently, 11 minutes is what a Wall Street Journal article recently concluded is the amount of time the football is in play on the field. In short, the actual amount of action in a typical football game.

But wait a second, you say. 11 minutes? What on earth could be worthy of broadcasting the rest of the time? Well let me tell you, dear readers, it isn't pretty. If you hadn't already guessed, most of the 2+ hour broadcast is all filler: commercials, replays, commentary and - lord have mercy - the players STANDING AROUND. The article concludes that:

"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."



For you visual people, a diagram that shows the most frequent parts of the broadcast

The article also added that a typical play only lasts about four seconds, and the ratio of inaction to action is approximately 10 to 1. So for everyone one minute of exciting plays, you must invest an additional 9 minutes of your rapt attention when not a thing is going on. Do you have that kind of time? Because I sure don't ... especially to watch a bunch of overpaid meatheads meandering around the field.

This is the best day ever. FINALLY, finally an actual scientific researcher validates what I've been saying all along - that spending an entire Saturday watching football is akin to eating ribs with no meat left on them. A lot of hype that's more trouble than it's worth and leaves you with an aftertaste of anti-climax.

Now if you'll excuse me while I go home to say "I told you so" to a certain someone. Toodles!

No comments:

Post a Comment