11 Minutes Of Action

(From The Wall Street Journal -- By David Biderman)

Football fans everywhere are preparing to settle in for the NFL's biggest and most electric weekend of the season -- a four-game playoff marathon that will swallow up at least 12 hours of broadcast time over two days.

But here's something even dedicated students of the game may not fully appreciate -- there's very little actual football in a football game.

According to a WALL STREET JOURNAL study of four recent broadcasts, and similar estimates by researchers, the average amount of time the ball is in play on the field during an NFL game is about 11 minutes.

In other words, if you tally up everything that happens between the time the ball is snapped and the play is whistled dead by the officials, there's barely enough time to prepare a hard-boiled egg.

In fact, the average telecast devotes 56% more time to showing replays.

11 Minutes Of Action

[The best part of the article is the last paragraph:
FRED GAUDELLI of NBC, who has broadcast football games since 1990, says the good old days weren't always so good. "I tell our production assistants who are in their 20s that they should have to learn how to edit like we did when men were men," he says.]