About three years ago my dad and I had a big fight. We were not talking. So we got together to watch the Super Bowl.
Hate to break it to Tony Dungy but football absolutely sucks to watch. One commercial after another with stops in the action that are endless. The camera work is for kids playing video games. People who used to watch the games can not see where the ball is or where the field is. You have close ups as if a drone were flying over the field at about 15 to 20 feet. It is bothersome to watch.
Dad and I got along when we turned off the damned game had a very simple talk about things. Then we looked at each other and said, “soccer is a better sport. Lets not turn the TV back on”.
A study I read a few years ago made the following conclusions: the average NFL game takes about 3 1/4 hours to play out a 60 minute game clock. When the clock is actually running, there is actually play on the field for about 8 minutes. So the other 3 hours 7 minutes that people are glued to the TV, they are watching advertising, people milling aimlessly about the field, and the announcers running their mouth and showing replays.
And yet, when I looked at a list of the most watched TV broadcasts of 2023, all but six, of the top fifty broadcasts, were either football or basketball.
As Orwell said, the Proles were easy to control, because all they cared about were sports. the lottery, and gossip.
Forward the circuses (no free bread, that would be Communistical)
Best: Recognize that entertainment and whimsy are important to well-functioning humans, and that different individuals have different preferences for their entertainment.
I personally could take or leave football, but find baseball more entertaining.
Sports are also good to the extent they inspire you to maintain some physical activity. If you get up during halftime and throw a football around your yard with some friends, that’s a good thing. Its even better if you do that for half an hour a couple times a week.
So, jerryab2, what do you do for entertainment so that I may properly ridicule you for your terrible choice?
Or get YouTube tv and just watch the key plays for games you do not want to watch all the way through. Very cool. Also YouTube tv tapes the games for you and you can just forward through the ads on most games.
To be honest, the only reason I’ve ever watched the Super Bowl is for the adverts. I’d probably doze off between them…except there’s not enough time spent in play to fall asleep.
Messaging a group of old school pals on FB yesterday and mentioned our bitter cold weather and one of the lads mentioned he’d seen highlights of the game between Kansas and Miami…in Kansas, apparently with the bitter cold. He pointed out it didn’t seem very fair to the blokes from Miami. Then I pointed out it was American football, not the real sort…where it’s mainly feet in contact with the ball and continuous play like rugby.
Some people like to sit in a quiet place and meditate…not my cup of tea but I don’t tell them (to their face) that it is a waste of time and they should be doing something useful instead.
Funny story. The NFL has been trying to internationalize its audience, what with soccer being so popular in Europe and beyond it’s a daunting task. Anyway, they take NFL games, chop out the inaction parts, and run it on TV over there. Somewhat popular by reports I’ve seen.
When they put on an actual game the in-stadium audience goes away unhappy; they had no idea it takes 3 1/2 hours to put on a 60 minute game. With soccer, of course, the action is nearly non=stop. Makes it hard to insert commercials, I’ll admit, but that’s the game.
I don’t think that is really true anymore. NFL-style football has been played in Europe for a generation now. Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was designed and built to be able to accommodate NFL games. There is a core NFL fanbase in Europe now, particularly in England and Germany.
I played soccer and love soccer, and while the action doesn’t stop, there are times when the action slows way down. There has to be, you have to pace yourself. But you don’t really know when the game will speed up again so you have pay attention. With the NFL you know when the potentially exciting bits are about to happen.
That is quite possibly true. It’s a story I knew when I was in the sports business (media side) which ended in the 90’s. Still, I thought it interesting in light of the complaints in this thread and elsewhere…
I think it has been at least 15 years, maybe longer, since I’ve watched a football game. I don’t miss it. I’ve read a lot of really great books in that time.
