Speeding up the game thoughts

Maverick

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 20, 2008
Messages
1,987
Reaction score
96
Points
48
I know there has been considerable deliberation on how to speed up the game over the years. With TV controlling so much now and its importance, I don't see much being done there, but here's an idea...

Stopping the clock after every incomplete pass is and has been an important part if the game for a long long time. Problem is with offenses passing more and more in the modern game, the clock stops more and more frequently. And it's always stopped until the ball snaps at the next play.

My idea would be to stop the game clock for only a set period of time before the game clock would start again...say 10 or 15 seconds max. The play clock would continue as it is now, but I believe this would be a great change. Games should be shortened and strategies would be changed as well...

Thoughts??

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
 

Every time this subject comes up, it reminds me of how much I detest that red hat guy. Nobody is asking how to to speed up games at the D3 or D2 levels and they play by the same rules. The problem is the ridiculous amount of TV commercials and promotions.

Every time I hear someone suggest "solutions" that involve getting rid of clock stoppage after first downs, a little part of my soul dies. Basically, that is an argument for less football in favor of a higher percentage of advertising - and that makes my head explode.
 

Every time this subject comes up, it reminds me of how much I detest that red hat guy. Nobody is asking how to to speed up games at the D3 or D2 levels and they play by the same rules. The problem is the ridiculous amount of TV commercials and promotions.

Every time I hear someone suggest "solutions" that involve getting rid of clock stoppage after first downs, a little part of my soul dies. Basically, that is an argument for less football in favor of a higher percentage of advertising - and that makes my head explode.

You said it better than I could, so I'll just say, ditto.
 

Every time this subject comes up, it reminds me of how much I detest that red hat guy. Nobody is asking how to to speed up games at the D3 or D2 levels and they play by the same rules. The problem is the ridiculous amount of TV commercials and promotions.

Every time I hear someone suggest "solutions" that involve getting rid of clock stoppage after first downs, a little part of my soul dies. Basically, that is an argument for less football in favor of a higher percentage of advertising - and that makes my head explode.

Yes. Thank you.
 

With football, you're only talking about once a week.

So if you're blocking off three hours of your day to watch a game, what's four hours?? Then I don't see why there's a pressing need to cut the average length of a game down from 3.75 hours to 3.4 hours, for example.


MLB on the other hand ...
 


Every time this subject comes up, it reminds me of how much I detest that red hat guy. Nobody is asking how to to speed up games at the D3 or D2 levels and they play by the same rules. The problem is the ridiculous amount of TV commercials and promotions.

Every time I hear someone suggest "solutions" that involve getting rid of clock stoppage after first downs, a little part of my soul dies. Basically, that is an argument for less football in favor of a higher percentage of advertising - and that makes my head explode.

Bingo!

I was watching a game with a friend who happens to be a far more casual football fan than I am. At some point, during one of the many, many commercials, he asked, "How can you enjoy these games with all these commercials? They're obnoxious!"

He's right. I even program my remote to click back and forth between other channels in an attempt to avoid them, but it's impossible.

Add to that the new "split screen" commercials, where half the screen is the game and half is a commercial. Yuck.

Now someone will lecture me on exactly how capitalism works, and tell me if I don't like it I should stop watching...
 

I used to channel surf when commercials came on, but with streaming the channels load more slowly, and nowadays the commercial breaks are all almost exactly synced up across channels.

Pretty much why I don't watch live TV anymore, except for sports where I have no other option if I want to see it live. If I don't care about live, I will absolutely go to the chopped-up YouTube version that someone inevitably posts.
 

Every time this subject comes up, it reminds me of how much I detest that red hat guy. Nobody is asking how to to speed up games at the D3 or D2 levels and they play by the same rules. The problem is the ridiculous amount of TV commercials and promotions.

Every time I hear someone suggest "solutions" that involve getting rid of clock stoppage after first downs, a little part of my soul dies. Basically, that is an argument for less football in favor of a higher percentage of advertising - and that makes my head explode.

Dome games when the game wasn't on TV... were like the most smooth and flowing games. It just felt natural and way different.
 

Every time this subject comes up, it reminds me of how much I detest that red hat guy. Nobody is asking how to to speed up games at the D3 or D2 levels and they play by the same rules. The problem is the ridiculous amount of TV commercials and promotions.

Every time I hear someone suggest "solutions" that involve getting rid of clock stoppage after first downs, a little part of my soul dies. Basically, that is an argument for less football in favor of a higher percentage of advertising - and that makes my head explode.

Well said. Shortening the game in baseball comes up because the things that extend the game are taking place on the field and therefore can be managed potentially (pitching changes, time between pitches, batters stepping out of the box....).

In football it is all about the length and frequency of the TV timeouts. Don't think this has become common in college but I hate how in the NFL you have the extra point - tv timeout - kickoff - tv timeout - next series. Football doesn't need to make on the field changes to shorten the games and it is sad that the current reality is that if we did want to shorten the games the only way to do it would be by changing the rules since nobody wants to mess with the all important ad revenue.
 



First world problems?

Between checking stats, scores, texting friends, posting in Gopherhole the commercial breaks are almost too short...maybe the at game crowd needs some songs to sing soccer-style to break the malaise...or cheap booze so they don’t care.
 

To be fair, in my comparison to D2 and D3, I did leave out a couple things: video reviews and extended halftimes for bands to play. It still doesn't change my opinion on keeping the timing rules the same for the actual game play. Do not take football away in favor of other things. The advertising remains the biggest problem with game length. I feel like they have done a decent job reducing the time they are taking to video review plays.
 

Add to that the new "split screen" commercials, where half the screen is the game and half is a commercial. Yuck.

Now someone will lecture me on exactly how capitalism works, and tell me if I don't like it I should stop watching...

I really don't think you will get much pushback on this one. Pretty much everyone hates it we just know there is nothing we can do about it so complaining doesn't do any good.

As to the split screen commercials, I would be all for it if it meant shorter other breaks but unfortunately it is just another way to advertise. 100% a function of the huge wide screen TV's because they know they can reduce the size of the picture for a short time and for a huge portion of their audience it won't drastically harm the viewing experience. If you tried something like that on the old CRT TVs people would have gone ballistic.
 

At the FSU game last weekend I noticed it much more. Probably because I was there in person, but it sucked that every stoppage longer than a few seconds became a TV stoppage (I may be exaggerating, but it sure felt like that)

Would be great to go back to having the 30 timeouts be 30 seconds no matter what, and having the band fill that time with some playing. I remember when I was in the band, they did that randomly and we were caught off guard!
 



Winding the clock after the ball is set on out of bounds plays and adding the center judge have helped reduce game times.

Game times thus far:

South Dakota State: 2:59 (Just about perfect)

Fresno State: 3:31 (Not bad with the OT)
 

At the FSU game last weekend I noticed it much more. Probably because I was there in person, but it sucked that every stoppage longer than a few seconds became a TV stoppage (I may be exaggerating, but it sure felt like that)

Would be great to go back to having the 30 timeouts be 30 seconds no matter what, and having the band fill that time with some playing. I remember when I was in the band, they did that randomly and we were caught off guard!

Did they run commercials on the big screen during breaks? I'm assuming they have a big screen at their stadium...
 

TV timeouts are a huge drag when you are at the stadium. It feels like such a waste of time and loss of energy. In my dream world the game would not stop for commercials. The network could show their commercials when they wanted to and then broadcast the couple of plays they missed in a compressed timeframe. Like BTNs 60 minute game replays.
 

Did they run commercials on the big screen during breaks? I'm assuming they have a big screen at their stadium...

They did the same things they do at TCF, recognizing other teams, people and donors, on the field. Dance line performance...not ELITE like the U...not even close.
 

In a perfect world, I suppose you could go to a situation like PBS, where "this broadcast is presented with limited commercial interruption."

In short, a sponsor runs longer messages before the game, at halftime and after the game, but there would be fewer breaks during the game. Of course, that would take a sponsor willing to put up the bucks and get fewer messages in return, which isn't likely in real life.

Or, they could do what the Twins do on their broadcasts - they run these short drop-in messages - 15 seconds or so -during natural pauses in the game. So in football, while the play clock is running and the team is in the huddle, run a :15 spot that doesn't take away from any in-game action.

I have heard radio stations that have sponsors for certain situations - "this kickoff is brought to you by....." and so forth. The radio station I work at used to have a business that sponsored sacks. every time there was a QB sack, I had to read a short message from this Ag business - something about getting sacks of seed from so-and-so. We also had a local business that sponsored the halftime and post-game scoring summary and statistics.
 


I know there has been considerable deliberation on how to speed up the game over the years. With TV controlling so much now and its importance, I don't see much being done there, but here's an idea...

Stopping the clock after every incomplete pass is and has been an important part if the game for a long long time. Problem is with offenses passing more and more in the modern game, the clock stops more and more frequently. And it's always stopped until the ball snaps at the next play.

My idea would be to stop the game clock for only a set period of time before the game clock would start again...say 10 or 15 seconds max. The play clock would continue as it is now, but I believe this would be a great change. Games should be shortened and strategies would be changed as well...

Thoughts??

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

It's a tough issue. There are way too many TV commercial interruptions and they are too long. Regulation time-outs seem too long, too, and perhaps one of them could be dropped each half. I hate to see the game itself change, though your suggestion make sense.
 

The Masters severely limits the number of minutes per hour of commercials, which makes for fantastic viewing. When they went without sponsors at all in 2003, it was phenomenal.
 

To be fair, in my comparison to D2 and D3, I did leave out a couple things: video reviews and extended halftimes for bands to play. It still doesn't change my opinion on keeping the timing rules the same for the actual game play. Do not take football away in favor of other things. The advertising remains the biggest problem with game length. I feel like they have done a decent job reducing the time they are taking to video review plays.

Dome games when the game wasn't on TV... were like the most smooth and flowing games. It just felt natural and way different.

I do not mind radio at all. when GSU first started out in FCS in 1984 we were not on tv much until the FCS playoffs and NC game. So I understand what you are saying.

While TV games are long especially with TV time outs for advertising, being on TV promotes the schools much more than radio does. Don't the major networks pay the conference for broadcasting their teams? Dont the conferences then divide up that money at the end of the year between the schools? How much money do the P5 schools make from TV games?
 

Nothing in the “game” can be changed to speed up play. It’s all about TV.

Go to the soccer model and only have commercials in the corner of the screen or along the bottom and play just moves on. Between quarters go to town.
 

Lots of good comments. I think its really interesting that so.e think this would actually result in "less football"

Hypothetically if there are 20 incompletions in a game, cutting the downtime by 20 seconds would take 6 minutes off the game time while not reducing the number of plays at all....

I agree that tv commercials and related ilk are the main problem here, but I'd bet that problem is only going to get worse, so was looking for something to "keep the game moving"

Doubt if anything will be done except add more commercials.... I [emoji31]

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk
 


Nothing in the “game” can be changed to speed up play. It’s all about TV.

Go to the soccer model and only have commercials in the corner of the screen or along the bottom and play just moves on. Between quarters go to town.

Good idea if the major TV networks & advertisers want to go along with it. Football is still the most watched sport in the U.S. I think those TV networks want to impress their advertisers with maximum view time, yet as you know that during 2 min. TV time out viewers go the bathroom, check on other games or get another cold one from the fridge. Still the networks have to make money and when they make money the Conferences and teams make money.
 
Last edited:

Absolutely agree on at least trying the soccer model for commercials. By going to a side by side and keeping the action flowing on the field you will maximize the amount of time people are watching the actual commercials and keeping your paying customers in the stadium happy. I cannot understand why this has not been attempted (assuming it hasn't).
 

Every time this subject comes up, it reminds me of how much I detest that red hat guy. Nobody is asking how to to speed up games at the D3 or D2 levels and they play by the same rules. The problem is the ridiculous amount of TV commercials and promotions.

Every time I hear someone suggest "solutions" that involve getting rid of clock stoppage after first downs, a little part of my soul dies. Basically, that is an argument for less football in favor of a higher percentage of advertising - and that makes my head explode.

I completely agree. There are plenty of 30 second dead periods in football. And reason we can't sneak in a lot of 30 second spots or 15 second spots? Take a 4 minute break at the quarter. Find innovative ways to do split screen advertisements during penalty announcements or injury delays. There are all kinds of times during a game and during a broadcast that nothing is happening. Get creative.
 

To me the easiest change would be eliminating the game clock stopping to move the first down chains. Could keep it for the last 1 minute of the 1st H and 2 minutes of the 2nd H, just to keep the excitement.
 

With football, you're only talking about once a week.

So if you're blocking off three hours of your day to watch a game, what's four hours?? Then I don't see why there's a pressing need to cut the average length of a game down from 3.75 hours to 3.4 hours, for example.


MLB on the other hand ...
I would venture to guess MLB has a smaller % of air time as commercials than college football. Probably not even close.

Sent from my phone using Tapatalk
 




Top Bottom