Okay, so, I’m a huge football fan, right? I mean, I live and breathe this stuff. And like any good fan, I’ve always been curious about how long these games actually take. We all know they say it’s 60 minutes of play, four quarters, 15 minutes each. But anyone who’s watched a game knows it’s way longer than that. So I went ahead to figure it out.
First, I started watching games with a stopwatch, I know, it sounds a bit much, but I wanted to get a real feel for it. I’d start the timer when the game started, then I started timing every break. I did this for a bunch of games, just to get a good average.
Then I started to break down what was happening during those breaks. You’ve got your commercial breaks, which are super frequent. Then there are the time-outs each team gets, and let’s not forget about halftime, which is like a whole separate event in itself. Plus, there’s all that time between plays, the huddles, the setting up, you name it.
After all this, I did some digging online. Found out that on average, an NFL game lasts over three hours. Yeah, you heard that right. Three hours! But here’s the kicker, I read that the actual gameplay is only about 11 to 12 minutes. Can you believe that? We’re watching for three hours, and there’s only about 11 minutes of actual football being played. It does make you think about all the other stuff that’s going on, doesn’t it? All those replays, those commercials, it adds up, I guess.
I also learned that there are quite a few German players in the NFL. It turns out that ten NFL teams have marketing rights in Germany. That’s pretty cool, right? It means the sport is growing globally, which I’m all for.
- Start timing: Used a stopwatch during games to time breaks and gameplay.
- Detailed tracking: Timed commercials, time-outs, halftime, and in-between play times.
- Calculated averages: Took notes on multiple games to find average times for each segment.
- Online research: Confirmed the average game length to be over three hours.
- Found actual gameplay: Discovered that only about 11-12 minutes is actual play time.
So, there you have it. It’s pretty wild to think about how much of what we’re watching isn’t even the sport itself. But hey, I still love it, it is just so much fun to watch.
