Study: NFL games only have 11 minutes of action

[SouperMeister]

Originally Posted by tryfuhl

yeah, the biggest difference being that everyone on the football field is playing

in soccer you have guys standing.. in baseball you have a couple of defensive guys per hit.. when there's a hit.. otherwise.. pitcher catcher... batter?

etc

Football definitely requires maximum effort when the ball is in play. What makes football truly great for fans is the strategy involved from play to play, based on down and distance, exploiting matchups, etc. I love being able to analyze a situation between plays and have an opinion about how the opposition should be attacked. I watch other sports as "filler" during the NFL offseason, but the NFL is my sports watching passion. Give me my 11 minutes of action over 3+ hours, and I'm engrossed.

[Defensewins]

Originally Posted by djnemo65

You're absolutely right Defensewins, football is the perfect game for the television age. For someone with ADD like me, I love how football rewards my ten seconds of concentration with 50 seconds of me time, in which to take a sip of beer and eat a couple of chips. Definitely too many commercials these days though.

Good point about A.D.D.
It is alsmot like we are a nation of sports fans with ADD.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by SouperMeister

Football definitely requires maximum effort when the ball is in play. What makes football truly great for fans is the strategy involved from play to play, based on down and distance, exploiting matchups, etc. I love being able to analyze a situation between plays and have an opinion about how the opposition should be attacked. I watch other sports as "filler" during the NFL offseason, but the NFL is my sports watching passion. Give me my 11 minutes of action over 3+ hours, and I'm engrossed.

Well put. NFL football is the sport most like chess IMO and that is a good thing.

[Bushead]

This post has ruined my game day experience. Haha.

No joke, all day I kept just seeing how much time I got to see an actual play. I stopped watching both games in the 1st quarter and just started reading instead.

[MattsRiff]

Originally Posted by Lotus

Well put. NFL football is the sport most like chess IMO and that is a good thing.

Was exactly what I was going to say... Chess has what 20 seconds of "action".

[irish]

Originally Posted by SmootSmack

We ran a similar study across multiple sports a few months ago. If I remember right there is actually more game action in a baseball game than football. Which is interesting because we think of football as a fast and exciting sport, and baseball as slow and dull.

I saw a similar study and was surprised at how close the game action time was.

[Beemnseven]

Originally Posted by SmootSmack

We ran a similar study across multiple sports a few months ago. If I remember right there is actually more game action in a baseball game than football. Which is interesting because we think of football as a fast and exciting sport, and baseball as slow and dull.

I just don't see how that's possible -- but I guess it depends on how you define "action" and at which point you begin to measure it. If the action in baseball begins when the ball leaves the pitcher's fingertips, and if most of the time the ball goes directly into the catcher's mit, then the total "action" for that play would last only for like 1 or 2 seconds (maybe not even that).

When a hit occurs, obviously the action time goes up. But I wonder how many times on average someone gets a hit compared with the number of pitches thrown in a typical game?

[MTK]

Just saying the word baseball makes me yawn.

[over the mountain]

heard on sports reporters the other day (they were speculating) that the best time to watch games without commercials is the start of the 4 o'clock game on sundays b/c tv stations dont want to start playing commercials until all the 1 o'clock games have ended and all the viewers are switched over to the 4 o'clock game.

[Kalisto2010]

There's more action in Baseball because there's less physical contact. Despite there being only 11 minutes of action, playing in the NFL is more hazardous than any other sport. And the history of player injuries supports this fact. On Sports Science they compared a Ray Lewis bull rush to Swat team battering ram. Conclusion, Ray Brings 1000 pounds of force per hit, a battering ram 800 pounds. Imagine being a running back playing against the Ravens, and being hit by Ray Lewis almost the entire game. Nothing compares to the punishment of the NFL. The only other sport is MMA and Hockey.

YouTube - Sports Science: Ray Lewis Vs. Battering Ram