Nfl game time

On paper, a football game should only last 60 minutes long. Why do American football games typically span multiple hours? Below we will discuss nfl game time reasons why football games are so long, and what you can expect when watching a game.

An average professional football game lasts 3 hours and 12 minutes , but if you tally up the time when the ball is actually in play, the action amounts to a mere 11 minutes. Part of the discrepancy has to do with the basic rules of American football. Unlike hockey or basketball, the minute game clock in football can run even when the ball is not in play. That means a lot of game time is spent standing around or huddling up before each play begins. The 11 minutes of action was famously calculated a few years ago by the Wall Street Journal. Its analysis found that an average NFL broadcast spent more time on replays 17 minutes than live play.

Nfl game time

The schedule makers will have to work around events that are already scheduled to take place in or near NFL stadiums — events that may compete with the games, put undue stress on the playing surface, or create traffic or logistical nightmares. The league begins collecting information from the clubs in January about any events that may create scheduling conflicts. The schedulers are also constrained by internal factors. It takes thousands of cloud-based computers to produce thousands of possible schedules — a process that sets the stage for the schedule makers to begin the arduous task of picking the best possible one. The NFL's scheduling formula ensures that all teams will play every team from every division in the other conference once every four years. The 16 teams in each conference are split into the East, North, South and West divisions; every division has four teams. Every team will play 17 regular-season games with one bye week. Teams will alternate seasons where they host nine regular-season games and one preseason game, or eight regular-season games and two preseason games. The AFC will have nine regular season home games in the season. The league typically schedules the Super Bowl champion at home for the Thursday night game that kicks off the new season. The league will also schedule games on the Saturdays of Weeks 15, 16 and In Week 15, three of the five designated matchups will be played on Saturday with the remainder being played on Sunday. Specific dates and start times for the designated Week 15 matchups will be determined and announced later during the season. In Week 18, two games will be played on Saturday with the remainder being played on Sunday.

Although this scheduling formula determines each of the thirty-two teams' respective opponents, the league usually does not release the final regular schedule with specific dates and times until the spring; the NFL needs several months to coordinate the entire season schedule to align with various secondary objectives — such as accommodating various scheduling conflicts, not forcing teams to play too many consecutive games at home or on the road, avoiding giving nfl game time one team significantly more rest time than their opponent, nfl game time, and maximizing potential TV ratings. NFL Schedule.

It consists of games, with each of the NFL's 32 teams playing 17 games during an week period with one " bye" week off. Since , the NFL generally schedules games in five time slots during the week. In addition to these regularly scheduled games, there are occasionally games at other times, such as a Saturday afternoon or evening, the annual Thanksgiving Day games in which two daytime Thursday games are played in addition to the normal Thursday night game, and new for a Black Friday day after Thanksgiving afternoon game. In place since , the current broadcasting contract establishes broadcast partners for each game. In games where teams from both conferences play each other, the network with the broadcast rights for the "away" team will broadcast the game. In each local television market , three Sunday afternoon games are shown.

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Nfl game time

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New York Times. While teams playing against their division rivals twice each has been a tradition since at least the merger, not all teams would play the same amount of divisional games between the divisions due to the imbalances that had existed: the AFC Central between and , consisting of six teams as a partial result of the Cleveland Browns relocation controversy , required teams to play ten intradivision games in a game schedule. The NFL would often schedule October division games so that teams would be able to swap home game dates if it appeared that the MLB playoff schedule would make a stadium unavailable to the NFL. In , the September 11th attacks resulted in the league postponing its week 2 games, leading to another week season. The scheduling formula before was very similar, except in a modified format to fit not having fully balanced divisions. The league typically schedules the Super Bowl champion at home for the Thursday night game that kicks off the new season. The law allows the league to sell the rights to all regular season and postseason games to the networks, but prohibits the league from directly competing with high school and college football games. As more MLB teams started to move into baseball-only stadiums by the s and s, this became less of a problem. Timeouts typically last two minutes, unless the game is not being televised. In , Candlestick Park was damaged by the Loma Prieta earthquake. The strike lasted 57 days. The schedulers are also constrained by internal factors. It takes thousands of cloud-based computers to produce thousands of possible schedules — a process that sets the stage for the schedule makers to begin the arduous task of picking the best possible one.

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Each of these Sunday afternoon games is televised on a regional basis to a few or several areas around the country, therefore each viewer can only see a maximum two games at each window on broadcast, whereas the remaining games are exclusive to the NFL Sunday Ticket premium package. Weeks 3 through 10 were canceled, but an additional week was added to make a 9-game schedule. Broadcasts of NFL games in Europe, incidentally, include far fewer commercials. NFL Schedule. Saturday doubleheaders in the final week of the season featuring matchups with playoff implications. The current formula has been in place since , the last year that the NFL expanded its regular season. It consists of games, with each of the NFL's 32 teams playing 17 games during an week period with one " bye" week off. Under this scheduling system, the earliest the regular season could begin is September 4, as it was in the and seasons, due to September 1 falling on a Monday, while the latest possible is September 10, as it was in the , , and seasons, due to September 1 falling on a Tuesday. This void would be filled by having to play against the 5th place teams in their conference in addition to their regular scheduling, hence tying to the "fifth-place" schedule. October 21, Archived from the original on May 8, Download as PDF Printable version. Since , the majority of NFL regular-season games are played on Sundays at pm, or around to pm ET see below.