I took an odd journey to get to this source. The actual graphic posted here is rotated and some of its colors were changed. The source for the visualization is this reddit post which links to the WSJ article. According to comments on the reddit post, the visualization pulled from charts from the second archive link, but I can’t find them in the non-paywalled WSJ article (and I can’t access the original article since I’m not subscribed to the WSJ).
NFL has a streaming service that condenses games for rewatch. It’s literally just the relevant action. It’s a lot longer than 11 minutes. It is significantly less time than the full broadcast, though.
I used to work for a local TV station as a videographer. We always had to go out and get “highlights” of high school and college sports games in the area. Football was by far the worst, because it could literally take you an hour to get any 10-15 seconds of footage that was usable.
I hated football before that. Now I really hate football.
The bottom half of the pie chart is the reason I can manage to watch it. It doesn’t demand constant attention, and offers occasional moments of focused action and excitement during your conversation/meal/game/doomscrolling.
The Live TV and ads are the worst part of trying to watch any sport live though, so I don’t actually watch much. Just a couple games the entire year. Actually I bet the superb owl was the first game of the year I watched beginning to end without interruption.
With other sports like Hockey, I can work up the excitement to watch some games if I hear the team is good and they’re already deep into the playoffs, lol.
I hate that I love football. Especially if you played, it hard to stop watching. NFL aways had the best camera tech, and was amazing in the 80s/90s. No other show on the TV was nearly as good technically.
This talking point only reveals your own ignorance of the sport. Which is fine, nobody needs to know or enjoy football. But having an ignorant take to complain about what someone else enjoys just shows that’s there’s a good chance you don’t care and only want to complain about something you don’t enjoy.
People have been saying that to me for years – often angrily – but honestly, every game I’ve ever seen has been like 5 minutes of game during which a guy touches another guy the wrong way, followed by a foul or something, then at least a half hour of back-to-back replays interspersed with a few guys debating every aspect of the way each guy touched another guy, plus at least ten minutes of advertising, then repeat.
I’m pretty sure even fans wouldn’t disagree with my timing breakdown.
eta: it sounds annoying broken down like that, but I’d argue fans should be annoyed at the industry, rather than at non-fans.
Maybe you shouldn’t argue about people having ignorant takes when you don’t bother to read what other people say and just declare them to be non-fans as if that gives them no right to say anything negative about the game.
As a non sports ball enjoyer I’m curious, why is this is not a bad thing? Like, I have no dog in this fight. I don’t dislike football or any other sport, I’ve just never found any joy in watching sports on TV. Occasionally it’s fun to go to a game, and it’s very fun to participate in one (never played football, but have played baseball, softball, kickball, and played soccer twice), but watching it on TV has never been fun for me. So, as someone (I assume) who enjoys watching a game on TV, why/why not is a chart like above not demonstrating a negative? I’ve never really been able to pinpoint why I don’t enjoy watching sports, and when I saw the chart my first thought was “oh, is that why I don’t like watching football?”
I can definitely see the presentation of football being off putting. I think the biggest thing is that chart is the description of shots of players just standing around. During that time there is strategy happening. Where someone lines up, how then other side responds and the back and forth from there represent the “grand strategy” of the game. If you’re into it, this can be a very compelling part. It’s an important part of the game that establishes and ebb ad flow and gives you a chance to try to figure out the strategies and where things are heading, I’m always wrong :). Outside of that part, that “dead air” I think helps generate a lot of the communal aspect of watching it. It’s a time for folks to chat about what’s happening in the game, debate about what a catch is, grab some snacks, and chat about other things.
Imagine something like chess, even less time with “action,” at least is some game types. But it can still hold the attention and interest of the people watching. If someone were to walk in with no knowledge they would probably wonder why there’s all this downtime and how could anyone enjoy it. Not sure if that’s the best metaphor but it’s what I’ve got at the moment.
It really is just somebody without interest or knowledge of someone’s activity then coming in to mock. Just makes it seem like they’re trying to be superior and yuck someone else’s yum.
Hope that answered at least some of what you were asking and makes some level of sense :)
ETA: Ads suck. Finding more ways to inject advertising sucks. Doing Picture in Picture ads sucks. You will not find me disagreeing with that aspect in any way ;)
I feel you. Some of the best games in baseball are the pitcher duels. As my kids and wife put it, we just paid a bunch of money to see grown professionals play catch until someone finally hit a homerun.
There’s always a game within a game and if you don’t follow or know… it’s boring.
I’m in the EU, and I don’t really watch American football or European footbal (soccer) anymore, but I definitely think NFL is much more interesting.
If we made the chart above for soccer, it would be 60% “players running around”, and then the match ends with a 1:0 (if sou’re lucky). I foud it very boring.
Might as well. There’s not much football in a football broadcast to begin with.
I want to know the source for that and if it’s actually accurate. It does feel right though.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704281204575002852055561406 (paywall removed) & https://web.archive.org/web/20100116114207/http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Comparing-Four-NFL-Games.html
I took an odd journey to get to this source. The actual graphic posted here is rotated and some of its colors were changed. The source for the visualization is this reddit post which links to the WSJ article. According to comments on the reddit post, the visualization pulled from charts from the second archive link, but I can’t find them in the non-paywalled WSJ article (and I can’t access the original article since I’m not subscribed to the WSJ).
It does seem like the pie chart is a little off from that but not by a ton, probably close enough for Internet stranger shenanigans
NFL has a streaming service that condenses games for rewatch. It’s literally just the relevant action. It’s a lot longer than 11 minutes. It is significantly less time than the full broadcast, though.
This is why I have hated football for years. It’s fuckin boring to watch. The halftime show was lit though.
This is why I prefer hockey, except my team sucks this year.
I used to work for a local TV station as a videographer. We always had to go out and get “highlights” of high school and college sports games in the area. Football was by far the worst, because it could literally take you an hour to get any 10-15 seconds of footage that was usable.
I hated football before that. Now I really hate football.
Football is more of a turn-based strategy game than a real-time action game.
I had a coworker that refused to believe it was turn based. I think it broke his brain.
And it’s a final fantasy optional megaboss with unskippable dialog.
The bottom half of the pie chart is the reason I can manage to watch it. It doesn’t demand constant attention, and offers occasional moments of focused action and excitement during your conversation/meal/game/doomscrolling.
The Live TV and ads are the worst part of trying to watch any sport live though, so I don’t actually watch much. Just a couple games the entire year. Actually I bet the superb owl was the first game of the year I watched beginning to end without interruption.
With other sports like Hockey, I can work up the excitement to watch some games if I hear the team is good and they’re already deep into the playoffs, lol.
I hate that I love football. Especially if you played, it hard to stop watching. NFL aways had the best camera tech, and was amazing in the 80s/90s. No other show on the TV was nearly as good technically.
This talking point only reveals your own ignorance of the sport. Which is fine, nobody needs to know or enjoy football. But having an ignorant take to complain about what someone else enjoys just shows that’s there’s a good chance you don’t care and only want to complain about something you don’t enjoy.
People have been saying that to me for years – often angrily – but honestly, every game I’ve ever seen has been like 5 minutes of game during which a guy touches another guy the wrong way, followed by a foul or something, then at least a half hour of back-to-back replays interspersed with a few guys debating every aspect of the way each guy touched another guy, plus at least ten minutes of advertising, then repeat.
I’m pretty sure even fans wouldn’t disagree with my timing breakdown.
eta: it sounds annoying broken down like that, but I’d argue fans should be annoyed at the industry, rather than at non-fans.
Cool. You don’t like to watch football.
Maybe you shouldn’t argue about people having ignorant takes when you don’t bother to read what other people say and just declare them to be non-fans as if that gives them no right to say anything negative about the game.
deleted by creator
…says the person who came here to attack anyone who dares criticize a sport they like.
How about stopping since you’re already dangerously close to violating rule 1?
deleted by creator
You think you’re on Reddit right now? Because this is not Reddit. Thank god for that too.
I think I’ll also give you one last warning about not violating rule 1 since you seem to think you’re immune to it.
As a non sports ball enjoyer I’m curious, why is this is not a bad thing? Like, I have no dog in this fight. I don’t dislike football or any other sport, I’ve just never found any joy in watching sports on TV. Occasionally it’s fun to go to a game, and it’s very fun to participate in one (never played football, but have played baseball, softball, kickball, and played soccer twice), but watching it on TV has never been fun for me. So, as someone (I assume) who enjoys watching a game on TV, why/why not is a chart like above not demonstrating a negative? I’ve never really been able to pinpoint why I don’t enjoy watching sports, and when I saw the chart my first thought was “oh, is that why I don’t like watching football?”
I can definitely see the presentation of football being off putting. I think the biggest thing is that chart is the description of shots of players just standing around. During that time there is strategy happening. Where someone lines up, how then other side responds and the back and forth from there represent the “grand strategy” of the game. If you’re into it, this can be a very compelling part. It’s an important part of the game that establishes and ebb ad flow and gives you a chance to try to figure out the strategies and where things are heading, I’m always wrong :). Outside of that part, that “dead air” I think helps generate a lot of the communal aspect of watching it. It’s a time for folks to chat about what’s happening in the game, debate about what a catch is, grab some snacks, and chat about other things.
Imagine something like chess, even less time with “action,” at least is some game types. But it can still hold the attention and interest of the people watching. If someone were to walk in with no knowledge they would probably wonder why there’s all this downtime and how could anyone enjoy it. Not sure if that’s the best metaphor but it’s what I’ve got at the moment.
It really is just somebody without interest or knowledge of someone’s activity then coming in to mock. Just makes it seem like they’re trying to be superior and yuck someone else’s yum.
Hope that answered at least some of what you were asking and makes some level of sense :)
ETA: Ads suck. Finding more ways to inject advertising sucks. Doing Picture in Picture ads sucks. You will not find me disagreeing with that aspect in any way ;)
I feel you. Some of the best games in baseball are the pitcher duels. As my kids and wife put it, we just paid a bunch of money to see grown professionals play catch until someone finally hit a homerun.
There’s always a game within a game and if you don’t follow or know… it’s boring.
I’m in the EU, and I don’t really watch American football or European footbal (soccer) anymore, but I definitely think NFL is much more interesting.
If we made the chart above for soccer, it would be 60% “players running around”, and then the match ends with a 1:0 (if sou’re lucky). I foud it very boring.
Revealed my what?
Haha, I was overdramatic, sorry bout that!