Defending the Slowness of Football
So apparently football games only have 11 minutes of action. I’d like to see an analysis on how many minutes (or pages) of any form of entertainment truly advance the plot. How many pages are “filler” and build characters up or give descriptions of the setting (like side line shots of the players or shots of the crowd do in NFL productions). Perhaps, if you are going to reference how many thousands of dollars and people it takes to produce a NFL game, you should reframe your analogy in more of a movie sense. It is entertainment, as well as an athletic, event. Compare the Olympics… how much coverage of athlete/country histories is given compared to the time the actual athlete is on the field? And isn’t the podium scene just filler? Or the conclusion? I rest my case. Not really—- this could be flushed out a lot more. But still. Don’t rip on football when you could compare so many other sports (baseball, golf significant shots, etc…) Just appreciate it for what it is: America’s favorite pastime (said a baseball fan).
Also, this just made me sick:
In this sample of games, the networks showed some significant differences. ESPN showed 24 minutes worth of replays in its game, which was 41% more than the average of the other three networks. Jay Rothman, ESPN’s senior coordinating producer for Monday Night Football, attributes this to the presence of Minnesota’s star quarterback, Brett Favre. Mr. Favre, he says, is a “move-the-meter guy,” who warrants a lot of extra attention.
From “11 Minutes of Action” from The Wall Street Journal
