The average NFL game last 3hours 12minutes, yet the average time the ball is in play

[Town's Town]

Is only 11 minutes.

That is a lot of sitting around for 11 minutes of action.

[fiddy]

Handegg is more boring than soccer, most overrated sport ever?

[CavaliersFTW]

Is only 11 minutes.

That is a lot of sitting around for 11 minutes of action.

Yeah it's honestly a bit much. I don't watch football and that's one of the reasons.

The NBA has been getting longer and longer too, I notice 48 minute games of the past 5 years take a lot longer than 48 minute games from 30+ years ago.

[WayOfWade]

If this wasn't allowed, the games would go on for like 5-6 hours. Having to play every single second wouldn't be a very good idea

[tomtucker]

yeah, NFL sucks...........but the end of NBA games are no picnic either.........1 minute left can take 10 mins, too many timeouts and fouling on purpose .........

[DonD13]

nfl: 3h12 for 60 minutes play time

nba: 2h20 for 48 minutes play time


it's pretty much the same

[imdaman99]

What about baseball?

[~primetime~]

That's definitely the GOAT 11 minutes in sports though.

[arkain]

Watching NFL is tough. Huge time investment considering more than 50% of the time you're watching commercials.

I usually do other stuff while these games are on in the background and occasionally glance towards the screen.

NBA is still ok because at least the ball is in play for the entire 48 minutes and anything can happen in that time. Same for soccer, might not be high scoring but the ball is in play for most of the 90 minutes.

[Nanners]

this is why i got a tivo

[UK2K]

What about baseball?

By WSJ calculations, a baseball fan will see 17 minutes and 58 seconds of action over the course of a three-hour game.

If we'd cut the action definition down to just the time when everyone on the field is running around looking for something to do (balls in play and runner advancement attempts), we'd be down to 5:47.

The "time between batters" averaged 33:39.
The "time between innings" averaged 42:41.
By far the most time-consuming period of inaction is the "time between pitches." This took up an average of 1:14:49.

[tmacattack33]

Is only 11 minutes.

That is a lot of sitting around for 11 minutes of action.

This is such a simple minded thing to say.

1. Those 11 minutes of play are pure intensity...as each play matters due to the genius of the 4 down rule

2. So much happens in each play that watching the replay and hearing the commentary in between actual plays is quite entertaining

3. If you are a true football head, you are watching things pre-snap...you're looking at the offensive formation, defensive formation, offensive personel, etc






In basketball, there is 48 minutes of play. But I am not really entertained by a guy getting an inbounds pass after a score and taking 10 seconds to walk up the court and set the next play up. As far as I'm concerned, that's just as entertaining to me as watching pre-snap football formations and movements.

[JohnnySic]

The best way to watch an NFL game is to record it and skip through the commercials and dead time between plays. No annoying bs and you're done in about 20 minutes.

[senelcoolidge]

NFL, football is boring. I'd rather watch baseball. I agree the last minute of nba games can be annoying.

[JohnnySic]

By WSJ calculations, a baseball fan will see 17 minutes and 58 seconds of action over the course of a three-hour game.

If we'd cut the action definition down to just the time when everyone on the field is running around looking for something to do (balls in play and runner advancement attempts), we'd be down to 5:47.

The "time between batters" averaged 33:39.
The "time between innings" averaged 42:41.
By far the most time-consuming period of inaction is the "time between pitches." This took up an average of 1:14:49.

Its a little different. In baseball, there's stuff going on between pitches. Runners on base to be aware of, fielders changing their fielding position, etc. In football there's no actual action until the line up/snap.

But baseball is very tedious in that there's too much time between pitches. Move it along please.