When it comes to sporting events, they all have a different length of time that they tend to last for. A Test cricket match, for example, lasts an awful lot longer than other variations within the same sport, let alone before you start to compare it to other events that are out there.
Anyone who has ever played soccer will know that it lasts for 90-minutes, but that isn’t the case when you add in extra-time or if the game goes to penalties, nor if you’re playing five-a-side. American football is an entirely different beast, but UK fans might want to know how long the game that they’re watching is likely to be.
American Football Games Last 1 Hour Broken into Four Quarters
On the face of it, you would be forgiven for thinking that an American football game will take an hour or so to play out. That is thanks to the fact that the scheduled time for a game is 60 minutes. Of course, that is presuming that the game works out as it is supposed to and also ignores the fact that every game of gridiron is broken up into four quarters. On average, a game of American football takes three hours and 12 minutes to be completed, which tells a more accurate story regarding what you can expect from your time watching a game play out in front of you.
Stops Each Time There is a Change of Possession
The most important thing to realise is that the clock is managed in National Football League games, which means that it stops every time there is a change of possession. That is because American football teams have players who specialise in defence and others that are more focussed on attack. Depending on what it is that they’re going to be doing, each team needs to ensure that the right players are in place to carry out the instructions given to the team by the coaching staff, so the clock stops as there is an alteration to the players on each side.
Approximately 12 Periods of Possession Per Game
On average, NFL teams can expect to enjoy around 12 periods of possession per game, which goes some way to explaining why it is that there are so many breaks in games and why they can take so much longer than the hour scheduled for each match. Then there are the likes of video reviews if there is a controversial call or the two-minute ‘Time Out’ that a side can call as many as three times apiece and you can see why the idea of a game taking an hour is little more than a pipe dream. There are also penalties that are time-consuming, plus injuries that need to be looked at.
Commercials Are King
The truth of the matter is that the National Football League has a huge global reach. There are millions of people who tune in to watch each and every game that is played in the United States of America, with those responsible for the sport being more than aware of the fact that they can make incredible sums of money by allowing for commercial breaks to take place during games. As a result, any time there is a change in possession, broadcasters take advantage of the break in place to have a wealth of different commercials played for those who are watching the game at home.
Broadcasters Give the Signal
You might think that the commercials would need to be curtailed once the players have done the necessary changeover and are ready to go again, but the truth is closer to the opposite. The players will come onto the pitch, but the game won’t restart until the commercials are over and the broadcasters give the signal that the watching public is back and ready to see what happens next. There is also a break two minutes prior to the end of each half, which helps to indicate precisely how much of an influence advert breaks have over the overall length of time a game takes to complete.
Half-Time
In a lot of games, the half-time period is another opportunity for companies to get their commercials shown to the watching public. They are scheduled to last for 12 minutes, which is exclusive of the hour period set aside for the game. Each quarter is 15 minutes long, with a short break between them and a longer one during the half-time period. Although half-time is usually 12 minutes, it can be longer if there is something special taking place. When the Super Bowl comes around, for example, there is usually a half-time show that will last for longer than the 12 minutes allotted.
It is also big business to have an advert on during the half-time break of the Super Bowl, with companies spending millions of dollars for the right to do so. As a result, commercial breaks are events in and of themselves when the end-of-season match comes around and none of the companies involved are willing to be rushed. It certainly helps that the ‘must-see’ nature of the commercials means that the watching public knows that such long advert breaks are what they’re signing up for, with some people even tuning in for the commercials and ignoring the actual football.
Overtime
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One of the things about American sports compared to those in the United Kingdom is the fact that the audiences abhor a draw. Whereas football fans don’t mind watching a pulsating 90 minutes of the sport and are happy for both teams to take home a point each if it ends without a winner, cricket lover could happily watch five days of a Test match only for no winner to be declared; such an idea is laughable in the minds of American sports fans. The result of that is that games that don’t have a winner at the end of the fourth quarter will head into overtime.
Overtime begins with an extra ten minutes of play in which a winner can be found. It used to be an extra 15 minutes, but was shortened to ten minutes in 2017. Since the start of the 2022 season, each team has been guaranteed at least one possession during overtime in the playoffs. Technically, regular season games can still end in a tie after the overtime has been played, but that is not the case when it comes to post-season matches. As a result, a second overtime period can be played if necessary. In fact, post-season games can have as many overtimes as needed to find a winner.
Why the Variance in Game Length?
As you have probably worked out by now, the length of an NFL game can vary wildly from one to the next. In 2008, for example, a game that took place between the Tennessee Titans and the Indianapolis Colts lasted for two hours and 33 minutes, which broke a 12-year record for the shortest time a National Football League game had taken to be completed. Other times, however, NFL games have lasted as long as four hours, which naturally begs the question: how can there be such a huge variance between the length of time it takes for an NFL game to be completed?
In truth, there are a number of different factors that can influence how long a game will last for. The most obvious one is how long the ball stays in the field of play. If a player is attempting a run or a pass and is tackled in bounds, the clock will keep ticking. If there aren’t many incomplete passes or plays in which the player carrying the ball runs out of bounds, time will inevitably be eaten up much more quickly than if the clock is constantly having to be stopped and then restarted. There is also no rule that says a team has to use up all of its time-outs, so if it doesn’t, a game will be over quicker.
Other Leagues Vary
It is important to point out that we’ve been looking specially at the National Football League here. Life in the biggest sport in America is different when it comes to rules and timings when compared to other versions of the game. If you were to watch a college game of American football, then you would notice that the same rules around two halves of 30 minutes broken down into four quarters of 15 minutes each also apply there, but the same is not true when it comes to high school versions of the game. There the matches are much shorter in terms of their duration.
High School Games, Flag Football & Touch Football
A high school game is scheduled to last for 48 minutes in total, which is broken down into two halves of 24 minutes apiece and four quarters that last 12 minutes each. There is obviously also much less of a need to have commercial breaks in high school games, so they tend to resume much quicker than NFL games would. There are also variations, such as flag football and touch football, which will have their own rules and the way that they work will mean that the timings are very different to what you will have come to expect from NFL matches.