Never watching Football live again

[Vdubchaos]

49ers fan but you dvr playoff games.

rriigghhtt. .

Why not DVR play off games? What difference doesn't make if I watch it live or few hours later?

Is that the definition of a fan to you? You MUST WATCH LIVE?

bet you became a 49er fan 3 seasons ago.

I bet you've been an asshole your entire life.

I've been a 49er fan since I came to this country in the early 90s.

 

[Vdubchaos]

That argument works just as well against American football, per the graph someone posted earlier that showed that actual playing time is roughly 5% of a televised broadcast. It's a nonsense argument; if the fun parts are common, they're also less exciting as there is no novelty. You don't scream like a maniac every single time someone scores in basketball; you'd look like an idiot. But you can do that in soccer because scoring is so much more uncommon, and therefore elicits a greater emotional response. Without the boring bits, the exciting bits don't mean as much.

But I agree that soccer is just harder to watch. I try to get into it around World Cup time, but at a certain point in a game (let's say an hour without scoring), it starts to feel less like palpable tension and more like "hurry the fuck up and DO SOMETHING." And the people flopping all over the field as if they've been shot by a high-powered rifle just because someone came within twenty yards of them? What the hell is that all about? Knock it off soccer.

You are watching wrong soccer. World cup soccer = bunch of random players that hardly ever play together.

Try watching Champions league towards the final stages.

Better yet, English Premier league (ANY weekend).

 

[DrPizza]

What you're overlooking is that there are 11 minutes of playing, and 100 30-second commercials. That leaves 2 hours of listening to the play by play announcers talk about next to nothing. I swear people's IQ's must drop by 20 points in order to listen to them and not hate them. "Well, if the Cowboys want to win this game, they're going to have to find a way to get more points on the board than the Eagles." No shit.

 

[Anubis]

they did a study, on average a NFL game has 11 minutes of action

 

[NoTine42]

the infrequent action does add to the intensity, but agree it can drag on. i dont like DVRing for later because its hard to avoid spoilers. But, starting late and fast forwarding through commercials is awesome.

Or use a dual tuner DVR and watch all of 2 games nearly live. Pause game 1 during commercials, switch to tuner 2 and watch action, pause and switch to tuner 1, FF through commercials then watch action...

..although the old DirecTivo made that a little easier.

 

[purbeast0]

Or use a dual tuner DVR and watch all of 2 games nearly live. Pause game 1 during commercials, switch to tuner 2 and watch action, pause and switch to tuner 1, FF through commercials then watch action...

..although the old DirecTivo made that a little easier.

that is why the redzone owns. you can just flip to that when your game is at commercial. then at halftime go take a shit or something.

hell, i personally wish football games lasted longer.

 

[DaTT]

This is why hockey. Scheduled commercial breaks at every 5 minutes of clock time, and only 2 and a half minutes or less.

 

[tHa ShIzNiT]

I'll usually be playing a game on another TV input and switch back and forth. Or put the football up on another TV or on my laptop with DishAnywhere. The constant commercials give me lots of extra gaming time.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

That argument works just as well against American football, per the graph someone posted earlier that showed that actual playing time is roughly 5% of a televised broadcast. It's a nonsense argument; if the fun parts are common, they're also less exciting as there is no novelty. You don't scream like a maniac every single time someone scores in basketball; you'd look like an idiot. But you can do that in soccer because scoring is so much more uncommon, and therefore elicits a greater emotional response. Without the boring bits, the exciting bits don't mean as much.

No, that's a nonsense argument. What, a roller coaster with 9 drops isn't better than a roller coaster with a single drop?

Football has two kinds of excitement, there's the giant game-changing play that comes out of nowhere, the occasional bomb for a TD, the pick 6, the punt return, etc, that will get the crowd on their feet. But there are also the situations that add excitement, the moments to savor and anticipate, the 4th and goal, the 2 minute drill, the onsides kick, the game-defining moments that keep you glued to the screen in anticipation even before the play. Soccer has almost none of the first kind and absolutely none of the second kind. There's a HUGE difference between rare moments of excitement and a complete lack of moments of excitement. I can watch grammar school girls soccer teams kick a ball aimlessly around the field for half an hour and see as much actual excitement as a professional soccer game. The only difference is that ironically the little girls spend less time crying like little girls than the professional soccer players.

 

[tHa ShIzNiT]

While I tend to agree with most of what was written above...since I am a huge football fan...I'd argue that the glued to the screen moments in soccer do occur, basically when one team is pressing really hard on the attack it gets pretty exciting. IMO though, those moments are less often, and also less exciting than the football moments.

 

[rh71]

I subscribe to hockeystreams (like NHL Gamecenter) and skipping the 2 17-min intermissions and all the 2-min commercials with 1 button is a god-send. They also do condensed games which are only 10 min long.

I would purposely let a game play out before watching for those reasons alone.

 

[Ayrahvon]

The worst part about only having 11 minutes of action isn't even the commercials. It's having to listen to idiotic commentators and going back to 'the studio' for explanations of rules that everyone already knows (well, except the refs). I really hope people start recognizing how boring this sport is and how much it should change to make it interesting again..

 

[zinfamous]

Rugby is a good alternative with more action.

Shame Rugby didn't become THE de-facto #1 sport in the US, as it's clearly funner to watch as a spectator. Plus, you don't have fat 300lb guys calling themselves "athletes" (of course, this is up for relentless debate) who'd get scorched in most sports.

I'm sure there's an alternate Earth where Rugby is indeed America's #1 sport.....

eh, those 300lb guys are mostly muscle. Also, when talking about some of the lineman, they can be pretty speedy.

Now, let's go with a 6-5, 250lb pro linebacker that can outrun any Rugby player and take his head off in the process. I wouldn't call him less than an athlete.

American football has its roots in rugby, anyway. so whatever.

 

[Scarpozzi]

I'm a season ticket holder for my team....when I attend games, the game on TV is only a few seconds behind the actual ending time of the game. The networks are just filling dead time. You DO actually see the referees holding players on the team at possession times for commercial breaks....but it's not all bad. I typically get up for more beer or a bratwurst during 4th down punts so that extra 3 minutes allows me to get back to my seat.

FWIW, you can go to watch ANY NFL game without commercials streamed to your PC under "Condensed Games" by subscribing to NFL Game REWIND. They gave season ticket holders a free code for this and it's very nice, but the bandwidth is a little sluggish on NFL Network. It's pretty nice if you want to go back and see matchups. I rarely used this though because I have NFL Sunday Ticket too.
https://gamerewind.nfl.com/nflgr/secure/packages?icampaign=Prod_GR_Nav&cvsorc=Homepage.GR.Video_Nav

 

[Rakehellion]

Football is pretty boring.

 

[Vdubchaos]

I really have 0 desire to ever go see NFL game live. Travel, price and all the effort for 10-15 min worth of action and a WHOLE lot of sitting around....no thanks

You couldn't even pay me to go

 

[Lounatik]

Why so many commercials? See here: (Ripped from NBCsports.com)

The NFL sent out a press release on Wednesday to brag about its TV ratings, and although the NFL doesn’t need any of our help in promoting the fact that its TV ratings are amazing, the numbers are worth pointing out anyway.

According to the NFL, the average game got 17.6 million viewers, and 205 million Americans watched at least one NFL game. That represents 70 percent of the potential TV viewers in America, which completely dwarfs the kind of viewership that any other type of programming gets. (Even though to me it’s actually a little surprising that 30 percent of people with a TV never watched a single game last season.)

Perhaps most impressive of all is that 34 of the 35 most-watched fall TV shows in America were NFL games. The only non-NFL show that made the Top 35 was NBC’s coverage of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, which checked in at No. 22.

America’s most-watched TV show of the fall television season was the Thanksgiving game between the Raiders and Cowboys, which drew 31.7 million viewers. That was followed by the Week One Packers-49ers game, which got 28.5 million viewers, the Packers-Lions Thanksgiving game with 28.3 million viewers, the Broncos-Cowboys shootout with 28.3 million viewers, the December 1 Broncos-Chiefs battle with 28.1 million viewers, the November 24 Cowboys-Giants game with 27.9 million viewers, the December 15 Packers-Cowboys game with 27.8 million viewers, the December 8 Seahawks-49ers game with 27.6 million viewers, the season-ending Eagles-Cowboys game with 27.4 million viewers and the September Eagles-Broncos game with 27.0 million viewers.

And that’s just for the regular season. Already we’ve seen playoff games with even higher viewership totals. And playoff viewing numbers only go up as the postseason goes on, culminating with the Super Bowl, which is America’s most-watched show every year, and this year may turn out to be the most-watched show in American television history.

Edit: Just heard on the radio that this past weekend's games were both in excess of 30 million viewers.

Lots of people tuning in for that 11 minutes of action.



Peace

Lounatik

 

[SSSnail]

I watch the game for other things as well, things that make the game experience what it is, including the commercials (well, some commercials anyways).

I think the commentaries, the play breakdowns, instant slomo replays, the tidbits about the games, the players, etc... All make the time spent worthwhile.

 

[midwestfisherman]

Commercial time = Twitter time (or go take a pee time)

 

[ViviTheMage]

I have not seen a game on TV since high school ... so boring to watch on TV!

 

[Train]

The problem with a failed attack in Soccer is the team has nothing to show for it. It's like they could have just spent that time chilling with the ball at midfield.

In football a team can have a great drive, fail to score, but have a greatly improved field position (or really bad position for the opponent, depending how you look at it)

I read an interesting story about the early days of football, and how it rose to popularity in the USA but not other countries because the US had more of a pioneering culture, The US, for the better part of 2 centuries, had a frontier, with a "line" that kept getting pushed westward, it was an exciting concept. Europeans hadn't had any recent exposure to a frontier, so were content running back and forth. Football allowed you to "take territory" and then either defend that line or attempt to push it further.

And of course, sport imitates life.

 

[Anubis]

I have not seen a game on TV since high school ... so boring to watch on TV!

i agree. i will however just flip on the red zone channel to have a background noise sometimes. if not for it i doubt i would ever watch US football

 

[bradly1101]

Football isn't a sport, it's an industry designed to separate you from your money.

 

[olds]

I haven't watched it live in years. But it takes me about 1.5-2 hours to watch as I only skip commercials.

 

[Capt Caveman]

I watch the game for other things as well, things that make the game experience what it is, including the commercials (well, some commercials anyways).

I think the commentaries, the play breakdowns, instant slomo replays, the tidbits about the games, the players, etc... All make the time spent worthwhile.

If it's a game that I care about, I prefer to watch it live also.