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That is fascinating. As someone who doesn't watch sports, I just assumed the match continued during advertisements. Does everyone just stop and stand around dur

by ydlr 5y ago

That is fascinating. As someone who doesn't watch sports, I just assumed the match continued during advertisements. Does everyone just stop and stand around during breaks? Is there a director scripting the action, somehow? I sort of want to attend a match in person to find out, now.

SOLAR_FIELDS 5y ago
It’s more that the sport is strategically designed for lots of downtime. The match does sometimes continue during ad breaks, but only as long as the ad needs to finish playing. Aside from the “downs” system that stops the clock almost every play, the coaches are awarded gratuitous and lengthy timeouts with which they use strategically to do things such as interrupt successful streaks from the opposing team. And yes, during those plus the 4 quarter breaks there is a lot of just standing around.
sjburt 5y ago
The TV production squeezes commercials in during stoppages. But American football has a large number of stoppages (between every play, during timeouts called by the players/coach, after scoring, when a player has an injury, between quarters) so there are lots of chances to squeeze commercials in. They have also added stoppages basically so they can squeeze an additional commercial break, such as the "2 minute warning" at the end of the half, which is just an automatic timeout (and inevitable commercial break). Some say that the addition of video review (where referees review a contested call) was an excuse to add more commercial breaks. There is no director, but there is a huge production team synchronizing everything and making sure that they squeeze in as many commercials as possible without missing any of the action.
joombaga 5y ago
> An average NFL broadcast lasts well over three hours, yet it delivers a total of only 18 minutes of football action. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-football-is-even-in-a-football-broadcast/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-football-is-ev...
acjohnson55 5y ago
The game is more stop than start, by a long margin. Once I got into more free flowing sports, like soccer and rugby, I can't really watch American football anymore. Same goes for basketball, where the last few minutes of game time are stretched out by timeouts, free throws, and video reviews.

by ydlr 5y ago

SOLAR_FIELDS 5y ago

It’s more that the sport is strategically designed for lots of downtime. The match does sometimes continue during ad breaks, but only as long as the ad needs to finish playing. Aside from the “downs” system that stops the clock almost every play, the coaches are awarded gratuitous and lengthy timeouts with which they use strategically to do things such as interrupt successful streaks from the opposing team. And yes, during those plus the 4 quarter breaks there is a lot of just standing around.

sjburt 5y ago

The TV production squeezes commercials in during stoppages. But American football has a large number of stoppages (between every play, during timeouts called by the players/coach, after scoring, when a player has an injury, between quarters) so there are lots of chances to squeeze commercials in. They have also added stoppages basically so they can squeeze an additional commercial break, such as the "2 minute warning" at the end of the half, which is just an automatic timeout (and inevitable commercial break). Some say that the addition of video review (where referees review a contested call) was an excuse to add more commercial breaks. There is no director, but there is a huge production team synchronizing everything and making sure that they squeeze in as many commercials as possible without missing any of the action.

joombaga 5y ago

> An average NFL broadcast lasts well over three hours, yet it delivers a total of only 18 minutes of football action. https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-football-is-even-in-a-football-broadcast/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-much-football-is-ev...

acjohnson55 5y ago

The game is more stop than start, by a long margin. Once I got into more free flowing sports, like soccer and rugby, I can't really watch American football anymore. Same goes for basketball, where the last few minutes of game time are stretched out by timeouts, free throws, and video reviews.