Seems worse this season. Not sure if fitting in more commercials when they can or just feels that way with clock running more often.

Consecutive time outs and untimed down changes are fine, but probably should have tried to decrease play clock before 1st down change or included at same time if picking up pace & lowering plays are the goals. When both teams consistently run off nearly 40 seconds between many plays without action then add on injuries, reviews, measurements, penalties, & delays getting back from commercials it can seem like too much game clock time and real time are ticking off between plays. Change of possessions, scores, quarters, and other stoppages pile on.

While football’s action can’t be as continuous as basketball’s it had a lot of actual game clock ticking off already when teams are not even lined up. I purchased a game once on iTunes with older rules, and it was like 20 minutes for just the live plays plus time lined up at line of scrimmage to include audibles, shifts, & motion. Some NFL games reportedly are 11 to 15 minutes for just live plays. They try to lower plays & actual amount of live play time by running game clock more than it already did while keeping the same play clocks and keeping same if not more commercials in between the action while saying it’s for player safety. Schools will probably continue to increase prices for less football.

Below was back in February. The length of games is obviously due to big TV contracts.

quote:
With fewer plays, Division II and Division III games could be reduced to less than 2 hours and 20 minutes, according Todd Berry, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association and ex-member of the committee.

"Division II and Division II will probably revolt," Berry told CBS Sports. "Their game times are still underneath 3 hours. They're running the exact same offenses. … I think one of the beauties of the college game is that our rules are the same across the board."

This post was edited on 9/28/23 at 7:51 pm

1 ...

Report Post

Posted by lostinbr

Baton Rouge, LA

Member since Oct 2017

9675 posts

Posted on 9/28/23 at 8:16 pm to dallastigers

There’s a good article in The Athletic that takes a deep dive into the question of whether clock changes have led to more commercials. Short answer: no.

In fact it turns out that the number and length of commercial breaks per quarter are pre-defined in the conferences’ TV contracts:

There are some scenarios that allow the network to sneak in more commercials - like player injuries or 30-second timeouts - but for the most part the number and lengths of breaks are set in stone. According to the Athletic article, the SEC’s contractual limits have not changed this year.

I did get a chuckle out of this line though: